


A Co-meow-dy of Errors

by othellia



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Bodyswap, F/M, Fluff, Identity Reveal, i even put a pun in the title, oh god what am i DOING
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-05-05 06:24:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 31,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5364791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/othellia/pseuds/othellia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While chasing down a thief, an ancient artifact causes Adrien and Alya to swap bodies. Desperate to keep it a secret from Ladybug, the two decide to try and live life as the other until they can re-track down the thief and switch back.</p><p>Things... don't exactly go according to plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ancient Egypt Strikes Again

The Louvre’s alarms blared harshly overhead as the two raced down the halls in pursuit of the thief.

There was a harsh clang.

“Shoot!”

Adrien turned in an instant. Security bars had dropped behind him; his partner was trapped on the other side.

“Not again,” he muttered. Obviously the museum couldn’t just get _rid_ of its basic security measures, but they did have an nasty habit of getting in his and Ladybug’s way. “Hold on for just one _meow-_ ment, my Lady.”

He raised his fist back, ready to summon his Cataclysm.

“Don’t!” Ladybug said quickly. “You saw that guy. He was just a normal thief, not an akuma! You don’t need my help, so get a move on and catch him before he gets away!”

“But-“

“Or should I say… _cat_ -ch him,” she teased with a smirk.

Adrien swallowed nervously, his stomach flip-flopping, before he managed his own smirk in return. He forced himself to leave Ladybug behind the bars and resumed the chase.

It was a good decision, ultimately. Adrien barely caught sight of the thief turning at the end of the next hallway. He pushed himself faster… through galleries, up the stairs, past an emergency fire escape door into the streets beyond. He paused for a moment, scanning the crowds, and then spotted the thief ducking into a nearby alley.

Adrien grinned.

The thief probably thought he was home free, but the real chase had just begun.

It was easy enough to clamber onto the nearest rooftop. He tracked the thief for awhile from above, gauging the man’s alertness before timing it just right and…

Adrien leapt down into the alleyway, knocking out the thief and snatching back the stolen necklace in the process.

“ _Paw_ -don me,” he taunted as he let the necklace dangle casually from his claws. “But I don’t think this belongs to you.”

“Wow! Take a look everyone!” called out a cheerful, familiar voice behind him. “Coming to you live from outside the Louvre, it’s your one and only Ladyblogger!”

Adrien forced back a sigh. It wasn’t like he had anything against his classmate; she was quite nice in fact. But he couldn’t understand just _how_ she always managed to find them in the middle of an incident. Sinking into his Chat Noir persona, he clutched the necklace tighter and spun gracefully to face her, leaning nonchalantly against the wall of the alley as she scanned him up and down with her phone.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” he said, preening ever so slightly at her obvious ecstasy at tracking down one of her idols. “As you can see, just another day, another criminal who had the mis _fur_ tune to cross paths with me.”

“Amazing, Chat Noir!” Alya said. “Is Ladybug nearby, or it is just you today, going solo?”

A part of him knew that he should’ve told Alya the truth, but he _had_ just managed to take down today’s thief by his lonesome. Whenever the two were mentioned, it was almost always Ladybug first, Chat Noir second. He was allowed to be a little selfish this once.

“I’m afraid it’s just me,” he said, chuckling as he glanced down at his claws. “Just the su _purr_ lative Chat Noir, prowling the streets of Paris, thwarting villains and keeping the public safe.”

“Umm… Chat Noir?”

“Yes, mademoiselle. Just another day. Un _fur_ tunately I must be off…” - he stretched his arms backwards, flexing his muscles - “Priceless artifacts don’t return themselves. And who knows what other criminals are out there, waiting and lurking in the shadows…”

“Chat Noir!” Alya insisted. She jabbed her finger at the necklace in his hand. “Your necklace is glowing!”

Adrien blinked and turned his attention towards the necklace. The large green jewel in its center was swirling with golden light. Now that he’d stopped speaking, he could hear a soft chanting coming from behind him. It was the thief.

Adrien’s stomach dropped.

“Watch out!” he yelled, tossing the necklace away as he tackled Alya to the ground.

The alley exploded in a flash of light.

Adrien groaned. His head ached, but he seemed to still be in one piece. A “normal” thief. Hah! He’d never let Ladybug convince him of that again, especially right after said thief had pilfered from the Ancient Egypt wing.

As he began to push himself back up, he froze. He stared at his hand. Bare skin, not leather, greeted him. And then more than that, his skin itself was darker, his fingers slimmer, his nails painted an electric green. He stared at them, his mind oddly detached as it tried to process what was going on.

Another groan echoed behind him and Adrien turned. His eyes snapped wide as he watched Chat Noir, watched himself, clutch weakly at his own head.

“What happened?” the boy said.

The other Chat Noir looked up and spotted Adrien. The two of them blinked at each other for several seconds, and then the other Chat Noir let out a high pitched scream.

Adrien winced.

And then he realized.

He reached up, pulling a strand of red-hair through his fingers. His hands moved towards his face and slowly wrapped around a pair of circular glasses. His heart thudded. He was in Alya’s body, which meant…

The thief let out a cackle. Adrien whipped around to see the man standing up, the necklace clasped firmly in his hands again.

“Is something wrong?” he said with a malicious grin. “Has the _cat_ lost its tongue?”

Adrien scowled, leaping up as the thief fled. It was his duty to catch him: transformed or not, Adrien or Alya… The thief was getting further and further away though. Adrien couldn’t run as fast as he normally did…

He burst out of the alleyway into a crowded mess of people. Tourists clogged the sidewalks while locals streamed past them in a shifting rush. Adrien strained up on his toes, shorter now as well. The thief was nowhere to be seen.

Adrien bit out a curse.

Whatever had just happened, it’d been that necklaces fault. He had to get it back. Letting the thief go now just spelt more trouble in the long run. But at the same time…

He glanced back towards the alley. Towards its other end, Alya was just starting to stumble to her feet, her arms stretched wide and trembling. Everything was going to dissolve into utter chaos if he didn’t go to her quickly. He let out a groan of frustration and jogged back towards his own body.

Alya stared at him as him as he approached.

“What- What’s going on?! Why are you me and I’m…” She looked down, investigating herself for the first time. Adrien bit back a comment as she ran his own hands over his suit. They curled briefly around his tail before drifting up over his hair to pat at his ears. Her eyes widened. “I’M CHAT NOIR!”

“Shh! Not so loud!” Adrien hissed. He glanced at either end of the alleyway. It was a miracle they hadn’t attracted any attention with the explosion. It’d be just his luck to have a random passerby decide to investigate now.

His ring beeped. They both stared at it.

“Chat Noir!?” Ladybug’s voice suddenly called out from a distance. “Where are you?”

His partner’s beautiful voice, normally a godsend, sent ice crashing down his spine.

Adrien couldn’t let Ladybug find them like this. His transformation was about to wear off. It was bad enough that Alya was about to discover his secret identity, but for Ladybug to know as well… to find out like this… He had to keep away from her. He had to keep everything under control until he had enough time to think.

He glanced at Alya and- uh oh. She’d recognized the voice as well, her eyes beginning to sparkle with the fire of the ever obsessive fan.

“Ladymphgfh!”

Adrien smacked his hand over her mouth. His eyes darted back and forth, and then he dragged them two of them further into the alley, crouching behind some cans of rubbish. He breathed in and out, waiting for Ladybug to pass them by.

Another beep.

He let go of Alya’s mouth.

“That necklace switched our bodies, didn’t it?” she immediately said. “It must have some kind of magical powers! Why aren’t we telling Ladybug!? She can probably help!”

“Ladybug doesn’t know my real identity,” Adrien said. He coughed, the feminine voice sounding weird coming from himself. “And I don’t know hers. It’s better that way.”

“But…”

“I’ll tell you more,” he continued. “Just not here.”

Adrien frowned.

He needed a safe, secure place for Alya and him to get on the same page before figuring out what to do next. But where? Cafés and parks were out of the question. There were far too many prying eyes, and he didn’t trust Paris’ number one fanatical Ladyblogger to keep her voice to whisper. He couldn’t go home either. He never brought friends home; Nathalie would be immediately suspicious. Alya’s home was also out of the question. He’d never been there before. Even if Alya swore by it, there’d be too many unknowns.

That left…

His eyes widened. Of course, the school! The main doors would be unlocked for several more hours, and only a couple clubs would still be meeting right now. He could find an empty classroom. It’d be the perfect spot.

As he made his decision, his ring let out its final beep and Chat Noir’s transformation dissolved. Moments later, Plagg twirled out.

“Whoa!” the kwami said, staring at Adrien for a moment before turning to Alya. “Why is _she_ here?”

“What is _that_?!” Alya yelped.

Adrien groaned.

“Plagg, that’s not me. _I’m_ me. That is… we’ve somehow switched bodies. I promise I’ll explain the whole story later. To both of you,” he added, as Alya began twisting to examine his white shirt and jeans. “Okay?”

Alya peered at him with his own face, green eyes narrowing with journalistic suspicion. Adrien shivered. Even though he was mentally starting to accept their situation, he didn’t think he’d ever get used to it.

Finally she nodded, he grabbed her hand, and they set off.


	2. The World's Best Wingman

The two of them managed to make it to their school without any disastrous moments. Adrien still had his hand around Alya’s. He’d discovered that his classmate had a terrible habit of wandering off if left unleashed.

They were passing by the art classrooms when Adrien felt a strong yank, his arm nearly pulling out of its socket. Alya had stopped dead in her tracks for something. He sighed and began to turn to around.

“What is it n-”

“ _You’re Adrien Agreste!?!?!?_ ” Alya shrieked.

He’d known it was only a matter of time before she discovered his identity, but he still winced.

Alya was standing in front of a mirror that’d been bolted onto the wall. She stared straight into it, poking at her… well, _his_ face. Adrien’s eyes darted around the small hallway. Thankfully no one had heard her exclamation. They were still alone.

For now.

“Adrien Agreste!” Alya repeated. “As in our classmate, Adrien Agreste! Chat Noir is Adrien Ag-”

“Shhhh!” Adrien hissed. “You _do_ realize that secret identities happen to be secret for a reason, don’t you?”

Alya was still staring at herself in the mirror. Adrien sighed.

Once he’d pushed past the embarrassment and slight frustration at letting himself get found out, he felt himself emotionally puffing up. After all, this _was_ his first ever reveal, the first time an adoring fan had the chance to gush over both sides of him. He might as well revel in it a bit.

Adrien let go of Alya’s hand to cross his arms and smirk. “Bet you never guessed you’ve been taking the same tests and doing the same projects with a superhero this entire time, huh?”

“But you _can’t_ be Adrien!” Alya said, turning towards him.

Adrien frowned. Of all the possible responses, he hadn’t quite expected that one.

“Why not?”

“Because Mar-” Alya froze, biting her lip. “Nothing!” she squeaked. A smile cracked across her face and she let out a tight series of chuckles. “I mean, it’s nothing unless…” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re sure I can’t tell anyone?”

“Absolutely _not_ ,” Adrien said.

Her following silence was unnerving. Adrien could see the various wheels and cogs in the blogger’s head turning. Despite asking for permission, she seemed more the type to beg forgiveness later. Of all the people to trust with a secret…

Then he had an idea.

“And just to make sure,” Adrien continued, feeling a grin creep its way up his face. “If you _do_ happen to let my identity slip out, I’ll tell Ladybug that you betrayed her closest comrade. Endangered him to the public. I wonder how she’d feel about her number one fan after that…”

“No! You wouldn’t!”

“Ahem!”

Both of them looked down. Plagg had inched his way out of the shoulder bag that Adrien was wearing.

“As riveting as this all is,” the kwami said, “you might want to consider getting a move on before someone comes.”

Adrien sighed. Plagg was right.

“No secret. No Ladybug,” he repeated. “Let’s keep moving.”

* * *

“So we’re almost absolutely sure it was that necklace that caused this, but the thief who has it has vanished, so we probably won’t be able to switch back until we find him again,” Alya said, checking off the various points on her fingers. She waited for Adrien to nod before continuing. “Soooo, in order to keep your identity a secret until then, I need to pretend to be you and vice versa?”

Adrien sighed.

“I think that’s our best option for now,” he said.

“That will never work!” Alya cried.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Why _not_?!” Alya turned to Plagg. She still didn’t understand _exactly_ what the creature was, but she was rolling with it. “He’s seriously asking me ‘ _why not_.’ Just…” Alya groaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose. She already missed the familiar weight of her glasses. “I mean, for starters there’s having to deal with our families. They’re _bound_ to notice something’s wrong.”

“I’m sure it will be okay. So we need to swap a couple personal details. We can also promise to keep our phones on us at all times, for emergency info texts.”

“And then, there’s me with the Ladyblog. I can still write all the articles, of course, but you’ll have to be out there catching things on tape,” Alya continued. “And there’s you with all your modeling and fencing and _vigilante hero antics at night,_ which, by the way… any _other_ secret activities you want to divulge here and now before I stumble into them too?”

Adrien gave her a sheepish grin.

“Modeling probably won’t be an issue,” he said brushing past her question. “From what I’ve seen of your blog, you’re hardly camera-shy. Just listen to whatever the photographer says and you’ll be fine. As for fencing… I’m not going to lie. Monsieur D’argencourt will see through you with a single thrust. You should probably fake a cold or something to get out of practice for the week.”

“And if it takes us longer than a week to find this guy?” Alya pressed. “If an akuma appears and I’m forced to be Chat Noir?”

“Plagg and I can help you with that. You’ll be far from be perfect,” Adrien said as Alya glared at him. “But we should be able to hone your skills enough that Ladybug will chalk up any mishaps to bad luck.”

Alya stared back and forth between the two of them and then buried her face in her hands.

“This is _never_ going to work,” she groaned. “And the timing! There’s the annual Golden Blog awards I need to prep for, our history presentations next week, the movie I promised I’d go and see with Marinette tomorrow…”

Alya froze.

The movie she was going to see with Marinette tomorrow!

Shoot, shoot, shoot! What was she going to do?!

“Well, she’s your good friend,” Adrien was saying. “I’m sure she wouldn’t take it too terribly if you canceled.”

“No!” Alya yelled, more intensely than she’d meant to.

Adrien blinked at her.

Alya bit her lip. Of all things, she considered herself a good friend.

And were good friends for if not to set their buddies up with golden opportunities?

Alright, so she admitted it was probably a little weird and maybe just the _tiniest_ bit sketchy, setting up Marinette to go see a movie with Adrien disguised as herself, while simultaneously keeping Adrien in the dark about Marinette’s feelings for him… but that’s what made it so perfect! As much as Alya’d love to trust and have faith in her best friend to move things forward, the girl was hopeless.

If anything, this whole situation was a nudge from the universe itself saying “go for it!”

Marinette would be her usual self around Adrien for once. He would be able to get to know her. The real her. And then once Alya and Adrien switched back into their normal bodies, well… who knew what would happen after that?

Alya covered up her long pause with a cough.

“I mean, that is… Marinette’s been _really_ looking forward to this movie,” she said.

“But…” Adrien said.

“Look. If I have to ask you for one thing during all of” - she gestured vaguely to the two of them - “ _this_ , it’s that you go see that movie with her. No further question. No further protests.”

And just like that, the matter was settled.

* * *

Adrien walked to school, the start of his first full day as Alya.

It was… bizarre. He was still feeling a bit odd from when Alya’s mom had grabbed him by the shoulders and squeezed the air out of his chest before shoving him out the door with home-made lunch. On top of that she’d mentioned she’d be working the dinner shift again and had actually _apologized_ in advance that she wouldn’t be there when Adrien got back home.

Imagine that.

A parent actually saying ‘sorry’ for not being around.

Adrien knew it was normal. That his family, that _he_ was the odd one out, but it still felt… fake. He kept his eyes on the ground, kicking a small pebble across the sidewalk as he got closer and closer to school.

“Alya!”

Another kick. The pebble skittered across five paving stones.

“Alya!!”

Adrien paused.

Oh right. That was his name now. Temporarily, at least.

He turned around to see Marinette running towards him.

“Are you excited?!” she asked as she pulled up alongside him. Her her teeth shone as she grinned in the morning sun. “Today’s the day!”

“What day…? Oh, you mean the movie.”

“Earth to Alya, of course the movie! We’ve only been planning this for, what, two months?”

“Wow,” Adrien said. “That’s, uh, a long time.”

Marinette rolled her eyes before poking Adrien in the stomach.

“You’re the one started the planning, remember?” she said, apparently ignoring the way he was staring at her, taken aback by her rather aggressive demeanor. “‘Oh, Marinette!’” she continued, switching into a rather terrible, exaggerated impersonation of her best friend. “‘We just have to see it at the Le Grand Rex! It won’t be the same experience! What if the tickets get sold out for the premiere showing!? We simply have to buy them in advance! Months and months in advance!’”

“Alright, enough already,” Adrien said. He felt a little embarrassed, like Marinette was actually scolding _him_ instead of Alya. “I get it.”

Marinette simply laughed and continued on to talk about the movie itself: Kiss of the Phoenix 2 - Rise of the Dragon. It was actually a movie that he’d been planning on seeing with Nino… or at least hoping to see with Nino, provided he could find time in his schedule for it. The first one had been awesome, something that both he and Marinette agreed on. Adrien quickly found himself getting wrapped up in a detailed discussion with her about the main hero, Henri L’Oiseau. They debated who Henri’s parents really were, what called him to put on his mask and become the Phoenix, why he hadn’t confessed his feelings to his childhood sweetheart yet, him dragging his feet to the point that she’d gotten engaged to Henri’s best friend at the end of the last movie…

Adrien found himself staring at Marinette several times. He never knew that the shy girl who sat behind him could be this chatty.

Not that it was a bad thing.

It was just… different.

“I don’t see why he can’t just tell her,” Adrien said. “The longer he keeps it a secret, the worse it gets.”

“And that’s his fault?” Marinette asked.

“Yes! If he’d just told her in the beginning, they’d be together already. Now he has to deal with the drama of breaking off the engagement and hurting his best friend’s feeling.”

Marinette sighed.

“Alya, you of all people should know why it’s so hard for him to just _tell_ her,” she said. “Why ‘just telling’ her is such a trivializing way to phrase… argh!”

“What? Why?” Adrien said, frowning. “Surely it’s better to get all your feelings out in the open. And then if they like you back, then they like you back, and if not, you move on.”

Even as he said it, Adrien felt a bit guilty. How many times had he practically thrown himself in front of Ladybug with nothing but an eye-roll and a shove given in return?

Moving on.

Ha.

Like he’d ever be able to do that.

“Ugh…” Marinette groaned. “I am not getting into this with you _again_ this early in the morning.”

Adrien had no idea what she was talking about.

“Get into wha-!?”

Adrien let out squeak as Marinette suddenly grabbed his arm and yanked him into the bushes behind the school’s main steps.

“Marinette, what are you doing?!” Adrien whispered.

“Shhh!”

The look in her eyes was so deathly serious that Adrien instantly obeyed. He stayed crouched in the dirt as Marinette slowly rose up and peeked out over edge of the stairs’ railing. She watched… someone or something for a moment and then let out a slow sigh of relief.

“Alright,” she said breathlessly as she sank back into the dirt. “He’s gone.”

“Who’s…” Adrien paused. He didn’t know whether or not he actually wanted to get into this. “You know what? Never mind.”

If it was important, he’d just ask Alya about it the next time he saw her.


	3. It's Impossible to Think of Everything

More than anything else so far, Adrien couldn’t help but be unsettled while staring at the back of Nino’s head during class.

And his own head, he guessed. But there was something odd about Nino’s that kept messing with his concentration. He only snapped to attention again as Ms. Mendeleiev announced a surprise quiz.

Alya twisted back at him, eyes wide with panic.

The two of them had forgotten to discuss whether or not they’d take tests as each other or themselves.

As far as Adrian knew, Alya got pretty good grades, so there wasn’t too much to worry about. Or at least there wouldn’t have been if Adrien came from a normal family. Unfortunately his father seemed to count anything less than a 98% as failing, one step away from being sent to remedial classes. The last thing Adrien wanted - or needed - was a brief meltdown in his household followed by eight extra hours a week of private tutoring when the two of them finally managed to switch back.

Both of them tried to signal at each other yes or no, whether they’d switch or not with small lip gestures and swift pointing. A drop of sweat trickled down his Adrien’s brow; Nino and Marinette were both staring at them.

“Alya! Adrien!” Ms. Mendeleiev snapped. “Eyes front and forward!”

Well, that killed that.

He lowered in his seat, pushing his pencil back and forth on his desk while the test papers were passed out. He decided to fill out the questions for now, and then maybe… maybe he and Alya could figure out some kind of plan before they finished.

He took longer than he needed to, watching out of the corner of his eye as the other students start to turn their papers in.

“Oh, Juleika,” Ms. Mendeleiev suddenly said, passing back the paper she’d just been handed. “You forgot your name.”

Adrien let his head slump against his desk.

So their teachers did check names. There went any remaining hope of successfully masquerading as each other.

Hello, extra eight hours a week of studying.

He dragged himself up to the front of the room, turned his test, and collapsed back in his seat.

“You okay?” Marinette asked beside him. Her journal was open on her desk in front of her; she’d been sketching designs as she waited for the couple remaining students to finish.

“Yeah…” Adrien said. “It’s… it’s nothing.”

Marinette glanced forward for a moment, then nodded and returned to sketching.

* * *

Lunch was weird, not eating with Nino. Adrien wondered if it’d be too weird if he went over and just sat down next to his friend anyway. Eventually he decided against it. He just had to get through a couple days… maybe a week or two at most. Then he and Alya would find the artifact, switch back, and everything would be fine again.

The rest of the day passed without further incident. He packed his backpack, nodding as Marinette went over their meeting time for the movie.

“Adriennn!” Chloe yelled out.

Adrien instinctively flinched before realizing she was going after Alya now, not him. He stared, oddly detached, as Chloe pulled out a new magazine and asked Alya to sign it. Alya blinked at the pen in Chloe’s hands.

“Ugh… I can’t believe she always does this,” Marinette muttered. She was glowering slightly, something Adrien hadn’t even known was possible with Marinette.

“I’m sure he doesn’t mind too much,” Adrien said, scratching the back of his neck. “That is, it’s just a signature. It’s not like it takes a lot of time or effort…”

“The time it takes doesn’t matter,” Marinette said. “Don’t you see how uncomfortable it’s making him?”

Adrien was about to say something about it probably being an off day; Alya was dealing with the situation for the first time, of course she’d feel uncomfortable. And then he remembered his flinch from earlier… his usual flinches… the prickling feeling of the class’ eyes on him as he clicked open pen after pen. He was the class celebrity. He was…

…different.

Chloe let out a scream.

Adrien snapped his head up to see Alya middle of doodling glasses and a mustache on his picture. She was just starting on a pair of vampire fangs when Chloe snatched back the magazine with tears in her eyes.

“What have you _done_?!” she hissed.

“You mean you don’t like it?” Alya asked. She gave a small shrug. “Everyone else in the city has my autograph, so I thought I’d switch it up and try something special.”

“Special? S-Special?! This isn’t special! This is a… this is a…” Chloe stared at the magazine with outstretched hands. “This is a nightmare! If you didn’t want to sign it, you could’ve just said so!”

She stomped out of the room with Sabrina trailing close behind. As Nino and Marinette stared after her, Alya turned to Adrien and gave him a small wink.

He slapped his palm against his forehead.

* * *

“Wow, that outfit looks great on you!” Marinette said, cheeks glowing pink. “I mean, I recognize all the pieces; but I don’t think you’d ever worn them together before. They really pop!”

Adrien blushed. “Ummm… thanks?”

He’d gotten hundreds of compliments about his looks before but never quite like this. Apparently years and years of modeling instincts had paid off; he’d simply rummaged through Alya’s chaotically stuffed together wardrobe, picking out what called to him.

Adrien cleared his throat. Both of them were still standing in Marinette’s doorway.

“Shall we get going?” he asked.

When they reached the theatre, Adrien agreed to pay for the snacks while Marinette grabbed their seats. As opened Alya’s wallet, he had a brief flutter of panic followed by waves of guilt. He hadn’t realized yet just how thin Alya’s wallet was. Paying for the food left only a few euros of change. He winced as he shoved it all back into her purse.

He’d have to meet up with Alya later, get her to pay him back. Well, pay _herself_ back.

As Adrien made his way to the seats Marinette had picked out, he briefly wondered if this was really the best thing to do. From what Marinette had said, it’d sounded like Alya was the one who had _really_ wanted to see this movie. It felt wrong kicking her out and seeing it with Marinette in her place.

Perhaps if he and Alya had swapped somehow?

No, his father would’ve never let him out of the house on such short notice like that. Not to mention the questions if he went anywhere with anyone other than Nino or Chloe…

And it’d probably feel too much like a date, at least on the outside, and he’d hate for Marinette to interpret it that way.

His unease only grew after the movie finally started. Marinette, as it turned out, was an abnormally expressive movie watcher. She burst out in laughter at all the right parts; clung to his shoulder during all the fight scenes, her fingers digging tight enough to leave marks; dissolved into a tear-stained wreck when the Phoenix’s best friend died in his arms…

It was all rather… voyeuristic. There was no way Marinette would react so openly if she knew the person she was sobbing into wasn’t actually her best friend Alya.

On the other hand… it did make him smile.

Nino was… well, Nino, and Chloe never broke down this way. At least not unintentionally.

As Phoenix’s dying friend extended a hand and asked him to look after his fiancé, Marinette’s sniffles got noticeably louder. The people seated directly nearby were starting to flash the two of them dirty looks. Adrien coughed.

“Umm… Marinette?” he said. “I know it’s sad but-”

There was a loud ripping sound from the front of the theatre.

An akumatized villain with steam train gauntlets burst through the screen. The people screamed.

“My name is the Conductor!” he shouted, “And I’m afraid all of you have arrived at your final station! Ahahahahaha!”

Just great.

The theatre broke out into chaos. People ran, tripped, pushed over each other in their rush to escape. Marinette and Adrien glanced at each other, and then start leaping over chairs themselves. Out in the lobby, Marinette froze.

“Keep going!” she said as people streamed around them. “I’ll make sure everyone gets out of the bathrooms!”

Adrien wanted to say ‘no,’ tell her that she should escape with the others, but he doubted the Conductor would break into the woman’s bathroom and it was a good excuse for the two of them to get separated. He nodded and they split ways. As he neared the front doors, Adrien changed directions and sprinted towards an “employees only” door. He crouched down on the other side and extended his hand.

“Plagg! Transform me!” he shouted.

Nothing happened.

Oh…

Right.

Adrien bit back a curse as he fished in Alya’s purse for Alya’s phone and started searching through the contacts for her.


	4. Puns About Monorails Always Make for Decent One-Liners

Marinette hid behind a chimney as miniature trains chugged around the theatre rooftop, firing coal bullets in all directions.

“Come out, Ladybug!” the Conductor shouted. “Your miraculous is mine!”

She had a good feeling that the akuma was in the bronze train whistle hanging from the Conductor’s neck, but feelings weren’t of any help when she was pinned down. When the battle had started, things had seemed relatively straight-forward as far as akuma attacks were concerned… then the Conductor’s coal-spewing train gauntlets had rotated around into train tunnels instead, spitting out miniature death trains and multiplying one coal-firing source into dozens. She couldn’t dodge all the bullets and get to the whistle at the same time.

Again, Marinette muttered a small curse to the night sky. She’d tried to contact Chat Noir; he’d given her a quick “coming” before his communicator clicked off. She pressed her back further against the chimney which was quickly crumbling from the onslaught.

Several grunts came from her left.

Her eyes widened in horror as Chat Noir struggled to pull himself over the rooftop ledge and toppled over in a heap. Like a bee colony, all the trains turned as one and headed straight towards him. The Conductor let out a laugh of triumph.

Stupid cat!

Marinette ground her teeth together and dashed to his rescue. She whipped out her yoyo, spinning it to create a temporary shield against the trains as Chat Noir wobbled to his feet behind her.

She frowned. Something about her partner was… off. Perhaps he’d been hit by something?

The trains continued chugging towards them.

Unfortunately whatever it was, she didn’t have time for it right now.

Chat Noir let out a yelp as she scooped him up by the waist and hopped off the roof, a fresh round of coal bullets whizzing past their heads. Her yoyo caught onto a pole and they swung safely down into the street.

They had to get some cover… get some time to make a plan…

“In here!” Marinette said, finding an unlocked door. It was one of the service hallways of the movie theatre, completely evacuated by now. She and Chat Noir quickly shut the door behind them.

“Ladybug!!!” the Conductor boomed from outside. “You won’t get away from me so easily!!!”

Okay, time to think of something.

Marinette turned to Chat Noir.

“…what?” she said.

Chat Noir was staring at her wide-eyed and entranced. Alright. So that wasn’t anything _terribly_ new, especially with his occasional history of getting brainwashed by the enemy, but he’d never looked this… _giddy_ about it. His hands moved towards his face - like he was about to rest them on both cheeks and let out a squeal (but that couldn’t happen because, come on, this was Chat Noir she was talking about), and then he stopped himself.

“Chat Noir?” Marinette said hesitantly.

“Yes, Ladybug!”

His hand whipped up to his forehead in a rigid salute.

Marinette blinked.

Perhaps he had been brainwashed by something after all. But at the same time he’d never acted this… that was, whenever he got brainwashed it was always a clear-cut, fully good to fully evil transformation, not… whatever this was.

An explosion outside rattled the hallway.

Marinette grimaced; she didn’t have the time for self-doubt. She’d just have to trust him this time. And if Chat Noir was slightly out of it right now, then maybe the rhythm of battle would knock him back in.

“Alright,” she said. “As far as I can tell, the akuma is in the train whistle around his neck. Chat Noir, I need you to distract him - and more importantly all those trains.”

“Wait, you want me to do-?” Chat Noir cleared his throat. “I mean, yes! Yes, I can do that. I _am_ Chat Noir after all.” He flexed his muscles. “You can count on me!”

Marinette rolled her eyes. Well, one thing was still the same at least.

The two of them studied the theatre evacuation map posted on the back of the door, drew up some remaining details of their plan, and then broke. Chat Noir flung open the hallway door and scampered outside as Marinette sprinted down the hallway to another exit. Completely out of sight from the Conductor, she scrambled up onto the roof again and surveyed the whole battle scene with a new bird’s-eye advantage.

The Conductor was on the street below, blasting out more and more trains from his tunnel-shaped gauntlets. Chat Noir was dodging them with a lot more yelps and tumbles than normal… but that could’ve just been to play up the distraction angle.

Right.

He was being a distraction for her. It was time for her part of the plan.

Marinette frowned. The second she leapt down, the trains would split their attack to target them both and she’d be in the same situation. She needed just an extra bit of additional help…

“Lucky Charm!”

She tossed her yoyo up into the air and then blinked as a single, red and black spotted rubber band fell back down. She stretched it in her hand a bit before sighing. Why couldn’t her powers ever just give her an actual, _obvious_ solution to stuff for once?

Keeping the rubber band clutched in her right hand, she surveyed the street below: the mad trains of death… hundreds of their missed, coal bullets now littering the ground… a couple small, sidewalk trees… the Conductor himself…

Chat let out another loud yelp.

Marinette shook her head and stuffed the rubber band away. She’d have to figure this one out on the fly.

Her yoyo caught on a pole and she swung down into the street, keeping her eyes locked onto the conductor’s whistle. If she could just get to it before he noticed…

The Conductor - as if by sixth sense - turned straight towards Marinette while she was still descending. His gauntlets rotated from tunnels into trains again; their smokestacks glowed red, ready to fire.

Marinette yanked hard on her yoyo string, pivoting midair as a fresh round of coal bullets whizzed past. She rolled as she hit the ground, taking cover behind one of the sidewalk trees. Coal pelted the back of the trunk, raining sticks and leaves onto her head.

“Face it, Ladybug!” the Conductor shouted. “Whatever hope you had of defeating me got derailed a long time ago!”

Marinette glanced to her right. Chat Noir was still pinned down, dodging for his life… too far away and in no position to help. She dug out the rubber band from where she’d stashed it.

There had to be something around that she could…

Of course!

Marinette grabbed one of the larger sticks that’d fallen, snapping off its side branches until she had a good, solid ‘Y,’ and slipped the rubber band around both edges. She flipped it from one hand to the other.

Yep, this would do.

She took one of the stray pieces of coal, nestled it into place, and took a deep breath. She didn’t know how many shots she’d have at this… but that was what her luck was for, wasn’t it?

Marinette rolled out from the side of the tree. Taking advantage of the Conductor’s split second of hesitation, she lined up her shot and fired. The coal flew through the air, striking the Conductor dead in his chest and cracking the train whistle. He stumbled back as his transformation began to undo itself.

Perfect!

She sprinted over to where the akuma was already escaping from the whistle, her yoyo at the ready.

“Ladybug, watch out!”

Chat Noir crashed into her, knocking her out of the way of several more coal bullets. As both of them hit the ground, she could the echo of train wheels chugging against imaginary tracks.

Great… she’d forgotten the other miniature trains would still exist until the akuma got purified.

“Thanks,” she said with a small groan.

Her eyes snapped wide.

The akuma!

Marinette pushed Chat Noir off and clambered to her feet just in time to see the black butterfly already flitting away above the rooftops. She let out another groan.

“Keep the trains under control!” she commanded. “I’ll get the akuma.”

She didn’t wait for his response before she flung her yoyo up and started the chase.

The last thing she needed was another repeat of the Stoneheart incident…

* * *

Adrien sat with his back against the movie theater hallway as a squadron of trains continued to pelt the world with coal outside. Alya sat next to him, still transformed.

“I actually fought with Ladybug,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Adrien said. “You did.”

He hadn’t realized until the battle how difficult it’d be to hang back, helplessly watching the action unfold, unable to leap onto rooftops and even _see_ the fight let alone join in. Not that he hadn’t tried his hardest, rushing up the movie theatre stairs, pausing for a moment somewhere around the fourth floor to nurse a stitch in his side, only to let out a stream of curses when he ultimately found the rooftop door locked.

And not like he would’ve actually been able to _do_ anything, even if he had been able to physically throw himself between Ladybug and the Conductor.

Without Plagg, his only weapon was a simple, ordinary phone camera. His only powers: record and stop.

No wonder Alya followed the two of them around like she did.

“I _fought_ with Ladybug,” Alya repeated, still gripped by the aftershocks of awe and obsession.

Adrien’s lips quirked upwards. “Welcome to the club,” he said.

She turned to him, her face dropping in horror. “I was _awful_!”

Adrien snorted.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said. “It was your first time.”

“You don’t understand!” Alya said. “I screwed everything up! I let the akuma get away! If it spreads it’s all my fault! And the trains are still out there because of me and… and… oh god…”

She buried her face in her hands.

Adrien smiled softly. “It’s okay. Things happen,” he said as he rested a hand on her shoulder. “And you protected ladybug. That’s what matters.”

“But what if she _hates_ me now?!” Alya moaned.

Adrien let out a chuckle.

“Are you even listening to what you’re saying?” he asked. “Ladybug’s not that kind of person. And even if you made the biggest screw up in the history of screw ups, which you didn’t, she’d never ever hate _you_ because you’re…” Adrien sighed. He leaned his head back against the wall and stared first at the empty hallway, then down at the hands that he temporarily had to call his own… “You’re her Chat Noir.”


	5. Omigod, Ohmigod, You Guys

Things calmed down after that… as much as things could be considered ‘calm’ given their current circumstances.

With no new akuma attacks on the immediate horizon, Adrien spent as much time as he could physically training Alya for her duties as Chat Noir. Sword lessons continued to be a disaster though; Alya had to end up faking a sprain to get out of them. Chinese was a similar impossible task, avoided by a fake cold.

“We gotta be careful not to overdue it on the illnesses though,” Adrien had said one day after class. “My father will find a way to blame it on public school and quarantine me to the house.” He hadn’t been entirely sure whether he was joking or deathly serious.

“Ugh… It’s not my fault your schedule is _impossible_!” Alya’d hissed back with dark bags under her eyes.

Adrien had grinned, a way to mask his stabbing guilt at the fact that she’d even gotten in this situation to begin with.

Towards the end of the first week, he’d started doing Alya’s homework in addition to his own. It was the only way he had at the moment to thank her for keeping up with his model shoots and various practices and having to deal with Nathalie and his father and not collapsing under the sheer weight of it.

And that was how his Saturday morning had started, with him sitting in Alya’s bedroom, munching on a bagel while writing what was essentially the same essay twice: change a word or two here, change some phrasing there, do it all in the best forged handwriting he could manage… Occasionally he pulled up the Ladyblog, checking it to make sure he was getting Alya’s usual tone down.

He glanced at the clock.

10:24am.

Normally he’d be the middle of a fashion shoot right now, and then hauled off to various lessons and events for at least the next three hours after. It felt weird, knowing he could just stop writing at any time, flop back down on Alya’s bed, and go back to sleep if he wanted to. The freedom was tempting… and unsettling…

He went back to writing.

In addition to the Ladyblog currently open in front of him, Alya’s room was plastered with posters of the masked superheroine… He smiled to himself; the two of them had _that_ obsession in common at least.

Alya’s phone buzzed.

He glanced down.

Marinette.

That wasn’t _too_ surprising. After all, it was the weekend, and the girls were best friends. It was only natural that she’d call and want to hang out.

Adrien picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Oh my God, Alya! You have to come quick!” Marinette said. “It’s an emergency and… Oh God, I don’t what do!”

“Wait, what?” Adrien pushed himself back from the desk, his Chat Noir adrenaline already rushing through him. “What kind of emergency?”

“I can’t tell you! You just need to come to my house right now!”

“But-”

The other side of the line clicked dead.

Adrien pulled the phone back from his ear and stared at it as his mind spun with possible catastrophes.

What if it was a new akuma attack? Or a fire had broken out in that section of the city? Or a robber was currently holding her family’s bakery hostage at knifepoint?

Wait, no, that was stupid. Marinette would’ve have called emergency services if any of those things were happening, not her friend.

He frowned.

“Plagg, what do you thin-”

He turned around to an empty room.

Right.

Plagg was currently with Alya, ready to transform her into Chat Noir at the slightest hint of danger.

Alya… Chat Noir…

Those were the two people who could actually help Marinette in an emergency. Not plain, boring Adrien Agreste.

Maybe he could call up Alya, let her know Marinette needed her and then Chat Noir could show up to help…?

…but ‘Chat Noir’ was also in the middle of a photo shoot right now, and if Marinette wasn’t in physical danger, then his… her? sudden presence would be rather inexplicable. And awkward.

Adrien sighed. It didn’t seem like he had too much of a choice.

He quickly stashed both his and Alya’s essays away and headed out.

* * *

The bakery bell chimed over Adrien’s head as he entered.

“Thank you so much for coming!” Marinette said, rushing over. She latched onto his arm and dragged him past her parents and the main counters; they waved to him with quick smiles. Unlike their daughter, they didn’t seem worried or afraid about anything in the slightest.

“What’s the emergency?” Adrien asked blankly.

“You’ll see in just a minute! This way!”

Adrien let her yank him up the stairs and into the family’s combination kitchen and living room… he vaguely remembered the layout from the other time he’d been here, practicing for the video game tournament. She started leading him up a second staircase towards… her bedroom?

What kind of emergency could there possibly be in her bedroom?

“And… surprise!” Marinette shouted as she pulled him up the final few stairs.

A mannequin was positioned smack-dab in the middle of her room wearing a beautiful, blue cocktail dress.

Marinette let out a squeal and pranced over to it. Adrien stared ahead blankly.

“Do you like it?” she asked him as her hands swept over the top beading. “So I know you said not to go overboard this year, and I think I didn’t? It’s just, how can I call myself your friend when I’m a fashion designer and you still don’t have a proper, one-of-a-kind dress in your wardrobe? So I just went for it, and… here it is!”

She ended her explanation with a grin and both hands extended in a “tada” gesture towards the dress.

When Adrien failed to respond immediately, the grin faded somewhat.

“Is something wrong?” Marinette asked.

“Err…” Adrien said. “So what was the emergency?”

Marinette sighed and buried her face into her hands. “There _was_ no emergency,” she said, like that should’ve been obvious from the start. “That was just to get you over here while keeping the surprise. And honestly, I’m kind of shocked to worked…” she muttered. “You normally ask ten times as many question before agreeing to anything…”

“Surprise for what?”

“Uh, hello? Alya? For your birthday. It’s next week. Remember?”

“It is?” Adrien said. And then he froze, realizing his sudden mistake. “I mean, yeah. Of course it is! Ha ha! Wow…”

Part of him was currently cursing at Alya for not telling him such an important thing. Another part was gently reminding him that both of them had _way_ too many things on both of their plates at the moment and that there were probably obvious things about _his_ life that he’d forgotten to tell her as well. The remaining part was growing all too conscious of Marinette’s increasingly suspicious stare.

He had to say something.

“Yes,” he continued. “My birthday. That is a thing that is happening next week and this…” His eyes wandered towards the dress, started to take in individual details. He found himself walking over to examine it closer. “Is this a half-loop stitch on china silk?”

“Yep.”

“How did you keeping it from puckering?”

“Oh… well, a girl has her secrets.”

He began to pace around the mannequin, Agreste blood taking over as he peered at every seam, every square centimeter of bead and lacework, every hem…Each stitch was even and straight, precisely in place, not a single misalignment or pucker. “This is amazing,” he said. He paused at one particular section of lacework and frowned. “How did you get the machine to do this spot?”

“Oh,” Marinette said, her ears going pink. “I did that part by hand.”

Adrien’s head whipped up, staring first at her, then back at the dress. He tried tracing the row of hand stitches back to a machine-stitched part, but all the surrounding areas were flawless and indistinguishable. “Up until where?”

Her blush deepened. “I did the whole thing.”

Adrien tore his eyes from the dress again.

“Marinette,” he said in disbelief. “How long did this _take_ you?”

The girl waved his question away. “Time’s nothing,” she said. “Your friendship’s way more important to me than a couple hours here and there… and there… and there…” Her fingers brushed against his as she turned the mannequin towards her, re-examining the details she’d stitched herself. “So you like it?” she finally asked.

“Like it? It’s-“

He tried to put his jumbled mess of feelings, tried to put what should’ve been _Alya’s_ feelings into words. Another sliver of guilt stabbed at his gut; Alya should’ve been the one here right now. It a way it was okay because Alya was still eventually going to get the dress. It wasn’t like Adrien was stealing it from her… even if it currently felt like that.

“I- I don’t deserve it,” he said.

Marinette frowned. “You totally deserve it,” she said. “Now get back. I didn’t put the zipper in yet since I might need to do some alterations. Let me just undo a couple pins…”

She flitted at Adrien with her hand, and he stepped out of the way. He watched as Marinette methodically started to unpin the back of the dress, and then let his eyes drift. The third story room was mostly identical to the last time he’d been here, a little more cluttered perhaps…

…but with one glaring difference.

“Umm… Marinette?”

“Mpmm?” she answered with pins in her mouth.

“How long have you had these magazine clippings?” he asked with a small inclination of his fingers.

“Whichff wone?”

Adrien turned slowly in a 360 degree arc. No matter which wall he looked at, he was greeted by glossy copies of his own face.

“The… uh… the ones with Adrien?”

Marinette spat the pins out into her hand. “Which one?” she repeated.

“Umm…”

He paused, trying to think of another response. By Marinette’s nonplussed reaction, the clippings weren’t new… but then why hadn’t they been posted up the last time he’d been here? Unless she was hiding something…?

Adrien let out a yelp as skin brushed against his side.

“What are you doing?!”

Marinette paused, one hand holding the dress while the other clutched the bottom of Adrien’s shirt. “Well, I have to have you try it on for a fitting,” she said blankly.

“Yeah, but you can’t just-”

Adrien mentally slapped himself.

He was doing it again. Alya and Marinette were best friends. Considering Marinette’s dream of being a fashion designer, Alya had probably tried on clothes for her before. They’d probably gotten to a point where Marinette didn’t need to ask her to strip anymore.

That didn’t make _this_ any less awkward though.

He could always ask if he could try it on in her bathroom, but then Marinette would probably ask why the bathroom and he didn’t have a good answer for that. Besides, he was a professional model… he was used to being in various states of undress by now.

Should’ve been used to various states of undress by now.

Was used to being in various states of undress around people that were not his classmates.

Adrien cleared his throat. “Uh, I have to take my glasses off first. Remember?”

“Oh! Right!” Marinette quickly let go of his shirt.

Deciding to just go ahead and do it, Adrien removed his glasses… then his shirt… His hands paused on his belt as he glanced over at Marinette. She’d already gone back to looking at the dress, fussing over some detail in the shoulder beading, clearly more focused on it than his body. Or rather Alya’s body? Which relaxed him as far as Marinette was concerned, but also made him way more conscious of all the magazine clippings staring down at him.

Finally, Marinette held out the dress and he stepped into it, standing straight and stiff as she pushed his hair out of the way to pin up the back. Even without the final zipper in place, he could already feel it…

He let out an impressed snort. “The fit’s perfect.”

Marinette appeared not to hear him. She continued to rotate around him, shifting and tugging at different spots.

“Raise your arms?” she asked.

He did.

“Hmmm…” She stepped back, rubbing her chin as she stared at the bottom hem. “I _guess_ it’s okay.”

“Trust me,” he said. “It’s perfect. I know these things.”

Blue eyes flashed up at him as she smirked.

“What? You’re a fashion expert, now?”

Adrien puffed out his chest. “Kind of, yeah.”

Marinette blinked at him, and then let out a snort, which soon burst out of her in full laughter.

Adrien took in a sharp breath, mildly insulted, and then realized exactly what he’d tried to claim. He was not Adrien Agreste, son of Gabriel Agreste. He was Alya. He _had_ to be Alya. Not Adrien…

Marinette’s giggles faded as she noticed the struggle on his face. “Sorry,” she said. “That probably wasn’t very nice of me, was it?”

“Says the girl who probably spent the last month working on a dress for me.”

Marinette stepped away, falling back against her couch as she waved her hand in dismissal. “Well, I mean, it’s faster than knitting.” She pursed her lips. “Walk around,” she said. “Let me know how it feels.”

“I already told you how it feels.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Humor me.”

Adrien sighed. Instinct kicked in as he spun around, his whole body shifting into one of his runway walks. He reached the back of Marinette’s room, turned, and returned to the front as Marinette began to applaud.

“Bravi!” she cheered. “I swear you’re getting better and better at the whole model thing every time I have you try something.”

“Ha ha. Well…” Adrien said, scratching the back of his head. “You know, practice and all…”

With Marinette now (finally) satisfied by the fit, Adrien changed back into his own clothes. He readjusted his glasses while Marinette figured out the final placement of the zipper, and then picked up his purse.

“Oh,” Marinette said, glancing up from the dress. “You have to leave already?”

“What? Oh. Umm…” Adrien glanced around her room. He hadn’t exactly realized he’d had an invitation to stay longer. “Maybe?”

Marinette snorted. “Maybe’s not an answer,” she said with a smirk.

“Oh, well, umm…”

Adrien mentally went over the rest of his day’s schedule… or rather his lack thereof. He’d need to call Alya at some point, daily touchups continued to be a must, but that wouldn’t be for hours and hours… He had their homework to finish, but he could do that anytime… As for right now, he had to do… had to do…

Nothing.

He turned back to Marinette, still waiting for his response.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked.

Marinette grinned.

* * *

Apparently, Marinette’s idea of a good Saturday was setting up her laptop on her rug to marathon terrible Spanish soap operas while the the two of them laid on their stomachs and binged on treats from her parent’s bakery downstairs.

It took him awhile to get into it. The over-worked, scheduled-crazed part of his brain was completely thrown off by the concept intentionally watching _bad things_ for entertainment and screamed at him for wasting time. By the middle of the second episode though, he’d managed to shove those thoughts into a mental closet and was laughing right alongside Marinette in places, his hand automatically reaching out for another pastry whenever he’d finish the last.

It was fun being Alya.

True, he’d lost certain things since the switch. Every night… even now, his chest beat hollow at the thought of Ladybug out there somewhere without him.

But at the same time, he’d also never been able to do… just… well, _this_ before, dropping everything to go hang out with a friend on a whim. That is, he got to hang out with Nino every once in awhile, but those times had to be approved at least twenty-four hours in advance and were _only_ approved if they didn’t clash with his existing schedule. He’d managed about five so far since the start of the school year.

Running around rooftops and saving Paris… there was definitely satisfaction and freedom to it. But there was also a satisfaction in whatever this was… a quieter satisfaction maybe, but satisfaction nevertheless.

“Are you sure you don’t have to go somewhere?” Marinette asked.

“Huh?” Adrien said, blinking to attention.

“It’s just you keep looking at the clock.”

“I am?”

He hadn’t consciously registered the location of Marinette’s clock, but even now his eyes snapped straight to it. It seemed, even as he bathed in the thought of freedom, a part of him still instinctively waited for Nathalie’s call to drag him back home.

Adrien glared at the unassuming time piece… like _it_ was the source of all his emotional problems.

“I’m good,” he said.

Marinette continued to stare at him like she didn’t believe his answer, but didn’t say anything else.

At the end of the next episode, she brushed off her jeans and stood. “I’m going to grab some more snacks and stuff. Want anything in particular?”

“Whatever you think is good,” Adrien told her. “Honestly. Everything your family makes is delicious.”

Marinette nodded with a small grin and descended the stairs, leaving Adrien in her room by himself.

He rolled over, back against the carpet and stared up at the ceiling.

Nothing had changed. Not really. He definitely wanted to switch back. He was going to switch back. There were too many things at stake, things that he _did_ like about his life and himself despite the frustrations that came with them. But he had to admit that this…

Adrien’s eyes drifted to the blue dress, now laid out across Marinette’s sewing table… her laptop screen, paused on the ending credits of the soap opera… the soft rustle of leaves outside her open windows while a gentle breeze drifted inside, sweeping away any remaining specks of stress and obligation…

He would miss this.

His eyes flicked to Marinette’s walls.

Okay. He’d miss everything except for the magazine clippings of himself. He frowned to himself and started to count them. Marinette returned right as he was reaching number twelve, her arms ladened with a new plate of cookies and two cups of lemonade.

“So… Marinette?” Adrien started as she began to lay everything on the carpet.

“Hmm?”

“About, umm… about Adrien?”

Marinette went rigid, her hand freezing around the plate. The air itself cracked with tension.

“What about Adrien?” she managed in tight voice, several pitches higher than usual.

Adrien blinked at her.

Was… Was he some kind of an off-limits topic?

Somehow he’d gone from asking a simple question to pressing some kind of nuclear launch button. Marinette’s transformation was so abrupt that her unease was starting to bleed over into him. Suddenly he wasn’t quite sure he wanted ask anything further… at least not right now.

After all, he was allowed to have one drama-free day of laughing at terrible soap operas, wasn’t he? Considering everything else he’d managed to put up with in his life so far, Adrien didn’t think that was _too_ much to ask. And if the magazine clippings had to wait until later, so be it.

“Uh… nothing,” he said, reaching for one of the cookies. “It’s nothing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nothing about hardcore couture sewing, so everything in this chapter is taken straight from the indomitable, flawless Elle Woods.
> 
> Also I admit, I miiiight be stretching it with Adrien's cluelessness re: the magazine clippings. But come on. It's Adrien. And Marinette. Cluelessness is their middle name when it comes to each other.


	6. Journalistic Confidentiality

“Chat Noir! Now!”

Alya took a deep breath and launched herself at Madam Teatime, the latest villain of the week. She swung Chat Noir’s metal staff like an oversized bat and knocked the possessed tea bag out of the woman’s hands. That gave Ladybug the opportunity she needed to sprint in and rip it apart. Moments later a black butterfly floated out.

“Gotcha!” Ladybug shouted, capturing it with her yoyo. “Bye bye, little butterfly.” She gave a small wave as the - now harmless - butterfly drifted back into the sky.

Alya followed its path as it slowly shrank into the distance.

“ _Bien joué_!”

Alya continued to stare at the butterfly.

“Umm…” Ladybug said. “Chat Noir? _Bien joué_?”

“Oh! Oh right!” Alya said, scrambling back to attention. She quickly bumped her fist against Ladybug’s with an overcompensating grin. “ _Bien joué_!”

Ladybug didn’t smile back.

Behind them, the latest victim of Hawkmoth’s malice was starting to regain consciousness. Ladybug went to her side, quickly assuring the old woman that everything was going fine, returned bizarrely sentimental tea bag, and helped her down off their current rooftop.

“Welp, another day done, another day saved,” Alya said as soon as Ladybug returned. “And it looks like my ring’s starting to beep, so I should really get-”

“Chat Noir,” Ladybug said. “Is there anything wrong?”

Alya froze.

“Wrong?” She brushed her bangs out of her face. “Wrong? Haha, what would be wrong?!”

“It’s just… you’ve been acting… _odd_ for the last week or so.” Ladybug frowned, her fingers playing with the edge of her yoyo. “I know we normally don’t talk about… well, our real lives, and that we _shouldn’t_ talk about our real lives, but if there’s anything you need to talk about…”

Her accusation dropped like a lead weight in Alya’s stomach.

It was kind of an insult to be honest, considering how much effort Alya had been putting in each and every day to keep up this act. She’d been receiving daily lessons from the real Chat Noir on how to be himself. Not to mention how much she’d already known about the crime fighting duo before the switch, being Ladybug’s number one fan and blogger and all.

_You? A fan?,_ a nasty voice whispered from out of nowhere _, All that time spent obsessing over them and you still had no idea Chat Noir was your classmate. How can you even begin to_ ** _think_** _you know anything about the two of them when you miss something that_ ** _big_** _?_

Alya shooed the voice away. It was being unnecessarily pessimistic. After all, she’d managed to fool Nino into thinking she was Adrien, hadn’t she? And then there was Adrien’s bodyguard, and his watchdog Nathalie… and his father… maybe? To be entirely honest, it was kind of hard to tell with that one; she’d only seen the older man twice since the switch, and only for five minutes at a time at that. So if Gabriel Agreste hadn’t noticed anything odd about his son yet, that could’ve just been the lack of contact so far rather than any amazing acting skills on her part.

Still, everyone else seemed to be taken care of at the moment; why was Ladybug the only one she couldn’t convince?

_Because it was Ladybug_ , her brain helpfully supplied.

Duh.

“Everything’s _purr_ -fectly fine, my lady,” Alya said, slinking back into her temporary person. Yes, puns. Puns were a good start. She had to keep up the act; she owed it to the real Chat Noir… and to herself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That! That right there!” Ladybug said, jabbing a finger at her.

Alya blinked. “What right where?”

“That pun!”

“You mean, I used one?” Alya frowned. “I’m… I’m Chat Noir. That’s what I do.”

Both of their miraculouses beeped again.

Three minutes.

“No, not the pun itself,” Ladybug said. “It’s that you didn’t use any this entire battle until _after_ I pointed out that something was wrong.”

“What,” Alya said.

She quickly thought back to the fight… okay, shoot, Ladybug was probably telling the truth. At the same time, it was _extremely difficult_ coming up with puns on the fly when she was literally catapulting herself in the air, focusing all her concentration into simply not screwing up. Alya was fighting a multi-front war, battling sleepless patrol night with Adrien’s godawful schedule with school with the scant updates she could manage for the Ladyblog… she didn’t have any mental troops left for pun creation.

Alya couldn’t tell Ladybug that though.

“And you haven’t been doing any of your crazy stunts and theatrics that you always love,” Ladybug continued.

“I think I pulled a muscle the other day,” Alya lied. “So I’ve been taking it easy.”

“And even when monsters aren’t attacking, you’ve been letting me start every conversation first. You never just _talk_ to me; you just play off whatever I’ve just said!”

“I’ve been trying to be more polite?”

“And! And you-” Ladybug’s cheeks burned red. Her eyes drifted towards the side of the rooftop. “You- You haven’t been hitting on me!”

“What?!” Alya sputtered. Of all the accusations Ladybug had hurled at her… Alya puffed out her chest. “I’ve been _totally_ making sure to kiss you on the hand and stuff!”

Ladybug’s head snapped towards Alya. She blinked in shock.

Alya blinked back.

Oh, shhhhi…

Another beep. Two minutes.

“What did you just say?” Ladybug demanded, taking a step towards her.

“Nothing!” Alya quickly said. The denial was futile, an attempt to bail water out of an already sinking ship.

“What’s going on, Chat Noir?! Tell me the truth!”

Alya got stuck with her back against a chimney, Ladybug’s arms placed firmly on either side of her, locking her in. Alya’s mouth twitched, trying to come up with some sort of lie, to find something to get her out of this mess…

Ladybug’s eyes were hard and unrelenting. They stared her down, piercing layer after layer…

“I’m so sorry!!!” Alya cried out as she burst into tears.

She slid down the side of the chimney, landing with her butt on the roof. Her hands flew to her eyes as she tried to stop herself before she dissolved into outright bawling. Above her remained Ladybug, blurring quickly in her watering vision.

“I tried so _hard_ ,” Alya continued through her sniffling. “So hard and you _still_ saw straight through me!!” Her stomach suddenly clenched in horror. “You’re going to hate me now…” she whispered.

“Hate you?” Ladybug kneeled down to Alya’s level and reached out a comforting hand… but Alya flinched away. Ladybug frowned. “Why would I ever _hate_ you?”

“Because I-” Alya paused, her words getting swallowed by a hiccup. The horror was fading away, being replaced by roiling guilt. “I’ve been lying to you this whole time. I’ve been lying to you straight to your face.”

“Lying?”

“About being Chat Noir!!!”

“What are you talking about, of course you’re Chat N-”

“No, I’m not! I’m…” Alya was straight up burning bridges at this point; Adrien would never forgive her, not after this, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself anymore. She rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her palms. “I’m just a stupid impostor,” Alya muttered. “A horrible failure who couldn’t do the _one thing_ she was asked to do, and you probably hate me already.” Her ring beeped a fourth and final time. “And now I’m going to transform back and you’re going to see him and everything is _awful_!”

Ladybug’s mouth twisted as she continued staring down at Alya, looking seriously disturbed. Moments later her hands wrapped around Alya’s shoulders; they helped pull her to her feet.

“If your transformation runs out, I promise I’ll look away,” Ladybug said. “Now start again. But from the beginning.”

Alya let out a sniffle. “I’m not Chat Noir,” she mumbled.

“Yes… yes, you mentioned that part.” Ladybug frowned. “You’re not an akuma, are you?”

“No! Of course not!” Alya quickly said, offended by the very notion. She paused. “I mean, technically I _am_ Chat Noir right now. I’m just not _your_ Chat Noir… ugh, how do I explain this?” Alya sighed. Ladybug _had_ asked for the beginning, hadn’t she? “Okay,” she started again. “So you see, there was this accident…”

Ladybug’s eyes narrowed. “What _kind_ of accident?”

* * *

The two of them remained on the roof, sitting now - untransformed - against opposites side of the chimney.

Alya’s heart pounded. Ladybug was sitting just a handful of feet away - sitting, doing nothing - completely unmasked… and Alya would be killed if she tried _anything_ to find out who lay behind it. She quashed down the journalist portion of her soul; she’d already caused enough trouble this night. No need to make it any worse.

“So it was that robbery at the Louvre…” Ladybug said, her voice drifting across the crisp night air. “And you and Chat Noir got switched? Permanently?”

“Well,” Alya said, glancing down at where Plagg was currently resting in her lap. “We don’t know if it’s permanent. We’ve been trying to track down the thief, see if we can switch back. But he hasn’t shown his face again.”

“Ugggggggggh,” Ladybug moaned. “That _stupid_ cat.”

“What?”

“This is soooo him,” she said. “Instead of getting me involved like any smart person would, he comes up with this whole crazy plan to try and solve things by himself so that I don’t worry or think less of him. Meanwhile he jeopardies the safety of the _entire city_ , since he thinks just anyone can step in and do his job.”

Alya’s shoulders slumped. “Sorry I’ve been so rubbish.”

“Oh, no! I didn’t mean that- Ugh, I said that all wrong. You’ve been great! Honestly!” Ladybug paused. “It’s just that Chat and I have been working together for so long that we have a kind of… well, flow, I guess? It’s not that you’re you, it’s just that you’re… not… him…” Ladybug let out another moan. “That doesn’t sound any better, does it?”

“No, it’s… I get what you mean,” Alya said.

They both sat in silence.

“And it was _you_ that time,” Ladybug started again. “Right? With the Conductor?”

Alya’s cheeks burned as a new wave of embarrassment washed over her. “I’m sorry I let that akuma get away.”

“Don’t be! I didn’t even _think_ about that. I wanted to thank you for saving my life!”

“Yeah… sure,” Alya said with a roll of her eyes. “Look, I know you’re just trying to make me feel better, but… it’s okay. You saw that bullet coming from a kilometer away, and I just got in your way.”

“No, I didn’t!” Ladybug insisted. “I’d completely forgotten about those trains. If one of those bullets had hit me… They packed a pretty serious punch. It could’ve done serious damage, and then who knows how far away the akuma could’ve escaped. Honestly, I was lucky to have you there.”

Alya’s head perked up from where it’d drooped between her legs. “Really?”

“Really,” Ladybug confirmed. There was another pause. “We do need to think about this thief though. He’s still out there with that amulet. He has to be found as soon as possible. Who knows what sort of chaos he could be up to…”

“More bodyswapping?” Alya ventured.

“Maybe…” Ladybug said. “Also, I do have to thank you. Again.”

“Huh? For what?”

“For doing this and going along with Chat Noir’s ridiculously stupid plan. It’s not fair to you, I know. The next time I see him…”

“Are you kidding me? This has been awesome!” Alya stood up, forgetting Plagg had been in her lap. The small kwami let out a yelp as he hit the roof’s surface. “You’re the greatest hero ever! It means the world to me finally being able to help and fight alongside you!”

“Haha… well, now I’m the one who feels bad,” Ladybug said. “I don’t even know your name.”

Alya bit her lip as a terrible idea started to trickle through her brain.

Chat Noir’s identity as Adrien was a firm secret that wasn’t to be let out under any circumstances.That she understood, black and white, her lips sealed…

But surely her _own_ name…

The world had a hierarchy. At the top of the pyramid shone flawless beings like Ladybug; at the bottom lay… well, Alya would’ve _liked_ to have said Chloe, but even she had to reluctantly admit that the girl had social clout. Still, in the grand, overarching scheme of superheroes and monsters, there was nothing inherently special about plain, Alya Césaire. And Ladybug already knew who the Ladyblogger was and this whole setup was temporary anyway and… there couldn’t be _too_ much harm, could there?

She glanced down at Plagg, hoping for any sort of advice or warning, but the kwami simply shrugged back up towards her.

Do whatever you want, his face said.

Alya grinned.

“You already do,” she said proudly. “Alya Césaire. At your Lady’s service.”

Silence greeted her from the other side of the chimney.

“I know, right?” Alya continued as the silence started to broach the edge of awkwardness. “Who would’ve thought Paris’ favorite blogger could pack quite a kick?”

“No, I never doubted that!” Ladybug quickly replied. “But…”

Alya frowned. “But what?”

She heard a series of mutterings and whispers: Ladybug, no doubt, conferring with her own kwami. Alya’s curiosity piqued, she had to fight a war against her own legs to stop herself from heading over.

“If you’re…” Ladybug started again. “If you’re in Chat Noir body’s right now, then that means Chat Noir… _my_ Chat Noir… is Alya? I mean, he’s in Alya’s body?”

“Umm… yeah?” Alya said. “Why?”

There was another period of silence, then a curt, “I need to go.”

“Wait, what?”

“Tikki! Transform me!”

Red light spilled out from around the chimney. Alya forgot she was supposed to stay on her side, out of sight, and pushed off from the chimney wall to sprint around it… but Ladybug already had her yoyo out and was swinging from building from building, four rooftops away.

Alya turned to Plagg, helpless.

“Do you think it was something I said?” she asked.

“With humans, it’s _always_ something you’ve said.” Plagg sighed. “We should get home too, before I lose the last pitiful scraps of strength I have left.”

Alya scowled at the black creature, but ultimately stuck out her hand to retransform. She remained on the roof for a moment, staring in the direction that Ladybug had fled. If she had any bit of luck, Adrien would never find out about this night…

Oh, who was she kidding.

She was screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This officially marks the halfway point! Hope you guys are enjoying; feel free to leave a shout out in the comments! <3


	7. +++ divide by cucumber error +++

Marinette stumbled her way to school the next morning. Dark bags weighed heavily beneath her eyes as her feet plodded forward, step after step.

She probably looked like hell. She definitely _felt_ like hell… How could she not? She’d gotten two hours of sleep last night, perhaps three.

Alya was Chat Noir. Chat Noir was Alya.

“How can Chat Noir be Alya?!” Marinette had demanded to her ceiling late last night.

“I understand why you’re taking this hard,” Tikki had responded as she’d hovered into view. “But I don’t think either of them were trying to intentionally trick you.”

“I know _that_ ,” Marinette’d groaned.

“And after Alya, Chat Noir is your best friend, right? You can trust both of them with your life. So really, you should be happy that he was the one he switched with!”

“I know, I _know_ … but, it doesn’t exactly work like that. You know?”

Tikki hadn’t known.

It was useless trying to explain these kind of things to an immortal kwami.

She crossed the street, only barely aware of passing cars. Apparently Alya and Chat had switched bodies during the Louvre incident from a week and a half ago, meaning everything she’d done with Alya up until then had been…

Marinette lifted her head up and moaned straight into the Paris air.

“Rough night?” Alya asked beside her.

“Ugh… you have no idea…” she said.

Marinette plodded a few more steps and froze.

She’d made it to school - not hard when she lived right across the street - and was standing on the steps leading up to the classes. Alya, at some point, had walked up alongside her.

No, not Alya.

Chat Noir.

Chat Noir was standing next to her. Was about to sit beside her in class for the next several hours. Had already been invited back home with her, as was tradition between Marinette and Alya on Wednesdays, to hang out and eat dinner.

Her best friend. Chat Noir.

Oh God. She’d dragged him to that movie, had sobbed on his shoulder. And then this past weekend, she’d called him to her house, had made him try on Alya’s birthday dress, had tried to take his shirt off for him…

Oh God.

She had tried to take his shirt off for him.

If he ever found out the truth. The full truth, she’d never hear the end of it.

And then… a deeper, sinking pit in her stomach formed. Had Chat Noir found out about Adrien yet? Chat Noir wasn’t allowed to find out about Adrien. If he found out about Adrien then…

When Marinette was young, her parents had told her God was a kind and benevolent being.

Her parents were _liars_.

“That bad?” Alya- no, Chat asked.

He leaned over, trying to peer at her face as she tucked it away, chin nestled against her chest in misery and shame. After it was clear he was not going to go away - because when did Chat Noir ever just go away? - she glanced right and caught his eyes.

Marinette shivered.

It wasn’t right.

Alya’s eyes were brown. Chat’s were green. They were always supposed to be green, the one part of him she could always see clearly, the one part that was always _him_.

The bell for class rang.

Marinette and Chat were the only ones still standing on the steps.

She took a deep breath.

“Don’t worry about it,” Marinette said, shifting her backpack higher up on her shoulders. She managed a half-smile. “It’s nothing I won’t be able handle in the end.”

* * *

For the first time since the school year had started, Marinette spent the whole morning _not_ gazing into the back of Adrien’s head. Instead she stole side glances at Chat Noir, trying to pin down any personal quirks, scanning for chinks in his anonymous armor.

She quickly learned that her partner was much more subdued than his normal self while in Alya’s body. He kept his mouth shut, remarks void of puns, and his attention - for the most part - focused on their teachers. As guilty as Marinette had felt about not noticing that her best friend had been swapped with her second best friend, it wasn’t hard to see why.

Chat Noir knew how to wear masks. Literally _and_ figuratively.

When Ms. Mendeleiev passed out a short quiz, it took all of Marinette’s strength to keep her eyes on her own paper. As curious as she was to see Chat Noir’s skills at history, the last thing she needed was Ms. Mendeleiev accusing her of cheating.

Still.

It was tempting.

As she handed her quiz in - with a short reprimand for forgetting to write down her name, the same thoughts repeated across her head like a marquee.

The person next to her was Chat Noir. She was _sitting_ next to Chat Noir. Chat Noir was asking if he could borrow her eraser. Chat Noir was staring blankly forward for a half a minute, not taking notes. Chat Noir was possibly daydreaming? Chat Noir was leaning over, asking her in a soft whisper what they had planned for dinner.

Wait, what?

Her hand slipped out from where she’d been using it as a cheek rest.

“Oh,” Marinette said. “Right.” Chat Noir wasn’t talking about an exclusive dinner between himself and Ladybug. It was just regular Wednesday night with Alya. She had to keep it together. “I… I don’t know,” Marinette said. “What do you want?”

Curiosity prickled as the words left her lips. Thinking back, Marinette couldn’t remember a time either of them had eaten in front of each other… meals weren’t high up on the list of priorities when they were in costume.

Chat’s lips quirked up.

“Man, you _really_ didn’t get much sleep last night, did you?” he said. The quirk widened into a grin. “Started another crazy, hardcore dress project? There some kind of contest deadline?”

Marinette blinked at him.

And there it was… the concern of Alya, but with just the hint of a mocking tug, a hook latching beneath her scales. It was especially annoying considering _he_ was the one taking an extended vacation from their night patrol duties. How many hours of sleep had he managed last night? Six? Eight? _Ten_?

From the chipper attitude he was radiating he certainly didn’t seem to skimping.

“Marinette?” Chat prompted.

Her spine gave way as her entire head collapsed onto her desk.

“Marinette!”

It was the only way she could stop herself from burying her fist into his face. And she couldn’t do _that_ because then she’d have to explain herself to the class, to the teacher, apologize to Alya when she saw her again because it was still _her_ nose no matter who was currently inhabited it… and then she’d have to come up with even _more_ explanations because only Ladybug was supposed to know about their switch.

Stupid cat.

Stupid, _stupid_ cat.

Tears started to prick at the corners of her eyes.

Didn’t he have _any_ trust in her? Of all the possible solutions, how could he’ve thought this - this of all solutions - was the best one? And if the two had managed to switch back before Marinette had wormed it out of Alya, would he have _ever_ told her?

Her fists clenched beneath the classroom desk. She blinked her eyes, clearing them.

Well, two could play that game.

If he wanted to keep this a secret from her, then she’d keep this one from him. She would use her knowledge against him, create punishments of sorts, things he wouldn’t be able to wriggle out of without breaking the charade.

The only difficulty was thinking up stuff that wouldn’t also reveal her identity as Ladybug… something that could…

Marinette’s head popped up.

“On second thought,” she said. “I have an idea for dinner.”

* * *

Marinette’s mother waved to the two of them as they passed the bakery’s front counter and made their way upstairs. As soon as they reached the second floor, the smell of that night’s meal hit them full blast. Chat Noir flinched beside her.

She knew almost nothing about Chat’s personal life, only knew a handful of his likes and dislikes, but she knew for sure one thing that he absolutely _hated_ …

“Is something wrong?” Marinette asked.

“Tonight’s dinner,” Chat said. He nodded towards the kitchen, where her dad was stirring a large pot. “Is that… camembert?”

Marinette let loose a wicked grin. “Yep!” she said. “I figured with your birthday and all coming up, it would be my special treat?”

“Treat?”

“Of course,” Marinette said. “After all, camembert is your favorite.”

“It is?” Chat said, his face tugged down by a sort of existential dread. “I mean, yes… of course. Thanks, Marinette.”

She excused herself and dashed upstairs for a brief moment, tossing Tikki and her backpack next to her desk; a plateful of cookies had been stashed inside. Her kwami taken care of, she rejoined Chat as he began to set out the silverware in silence.

Marinette hovered over to her dad’s side to check the progress of the meal: Petite Camembert Soup au Gratin. As she took a sniff of the hearty mixture, she felt a sliver of guilt for essentially _forcing_ Chat through this… and then she remembered it was a situation of his entire doing.

When the soup was ready, the two took their seats on opposite sides of the table. Marinette stared at Chat as he took his first bite, her eyes latching onto the way his hand trembled around the stem of his spoon, the way it lingering outside his mouth before he finally took the plunge and chomped down.

His face soured, color draining from his cheeks.

“Something wrong with the taste?” Marinette enquired.

“No, not at all!” Chat said instantly. “It’s great. Honestly. Thanks, Mr. Dupain!”

“My pleasure,” he said, having missed Chat’s reaction from his spot in the kitchen.

A moment later, Marinette’s mom poked her head up from the bakery steps. “Oh, good. You’re done with the cooking,” she said to her husband. “There’s been a sudden rush. Can I get your help for a couple minutes?”

The two adults disappeared down the steps, leaving Marinette and Chat Noir in silence.

Chat Noir continued to persevere through the soup, swallowing painfully after each mouthful. As he noticed Marinette’s eyes on him, he managed a shaky smile. Marinette smiled cheerfully back.

“So how is the food?” she asked.

“Oh, good. Simply great.”

Pity took hold, weakness seeping into one of the many cracks of her heart. “You know, you really don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.”

“No! Like you said, it’s my favorite. It’s…” He struggled to take another spoonful - his gallant side, kicking in as usual. “It’s just an off day for me.”

“Oh? What’s so off about it?”

“Umm… you know… stuff.” He clinked his spoon across the bottom of the soup bowl. “You seem to be in the same boat.”

She blinked at him. “Me? Why would you say that?”

“Marinette, you basically sleepwalked into school this morning. You forgot to write your name on the test today.” Chat snorted. “It doesn’t exactly take Sherlock Holmes to figure out something’s up. What is it? Content deadline? Something with school?” He paused, his fingers playing around the edge of his spoon. “Boy trouble?”

Her hand jerked as she went to take a new spoonful, almost knocking the whole bowl over.

“No!” she instantly said, mentally whispering a quick prayer for the close call. “No way! It’s umm… it’s a contest. Like you said.”

“Cool,” Chat said. “Well, not cool if you’re losing sleep about it, but cool that you’re doing it. Which one?”

“It’s…” Her brain racked itself for idea. “It’s another competition for Gabriel Agreste.”

Chat Noir stared at her.

“Really?” he said smoothly. “I wasn’t aware he was holding a competition at moment.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow. It was a simple enough lie, but for Chat to be suspicious… No, she was just imagining things. After all, Chat Noir hardly knew about fashion enough to know whether Gabriel Agreste was holding a competition or not.

Although he _had_ been oddly knowledge about the dress she’d made for Alya.

“Well,” Marinette said, tucking that thought to the back of her mind. “He is. And I’m entering it.”

Chat leaned forward, soup forgotten as he rested his chin on his hands. “What’s the competition for?”

“Dresses,” Marinette lied automatically.

“Prize?” he asked… and was that a smile?

“Magazine spread,” she responded. “And an interview.”

“Sounds like one heck of a competition,” he said. “With your talent, you’d win for sure.”

Marinette frowned. Something about the way he was leading her along bugged her, but she couldn’t quite place her finger on what…

“Yeah,” she said. “Thank-”

Car tires screeched outside. A scream pierced the air behind it.

Both of them were at the window before either of them had realized they’d moved. In the street below, a car had crashed into a light pole, it’s front completely wrecked. A man kicked out of the door, stumbling out on wobbling legs. In the distance, police sirens rang out, echoing across the bridge and the surrounding buildings.

Marinette stared at the man for a moment before memory kicked in. It was the thief from the Louvre.

She watched him stumbled into a nearby alleyway.

There was a blur of movement out of the corner of her eye. Chat was already moving, sprinting for the stairs.

“Wait! Where are you going?!”

If he’d heard her, he didn’t stop.

Marinette slapped her hand to her face and chased after him. She caught him at the front of the shop, one lone idiot standing at the door as the rest of her family’s customers cowered behind the counters.

“What the hell are you doing? Do you want to get yourself killed?!” she hissed, latching onto his arm. She wanted to scream at him that he wasn’t Chat Noir at the moment, that he needed to get back to where it was safe.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “That guy, he’s… I need to catch him.”

“Why?! The police are over there. Let them do it!”

“But they can’t…” He let out a groan. “Look. He has this _very_ important amulet I need to get.”

Marinette was a split second away from blowing up. “Important amulet for _what_?!?”

“Err…” Chat scratched the back of his neck with his free arm. “It’s a family heirloom?”

Marinette stared at him.

Her partner was a full-blown idiot.

“Ch- Alya, I didn’t even see an amulet. What if he doesn’t have it?”

“Oh, he’ll have it…”

Chat took a step outside, and Marinette yanked him back in.

“Don’t you think this is a job, for like, you know… Chat Noir or Ladybug to handle?” she asked.

“Sure, but they’re not here,” he said. “We are. We can do stuff too, can’t we? Like that one time you helped bring down the Evillustrator.”

“That’s not the same,” Marinette bit out. Curse her and her resourceful civilian-self giving Chat Noir ideas…

Of course, he _was_ right about one thing: they had to get that amulet back. It’d taken a week and a half for the thief to resurface, so who know when their next chance would come again? Despite the pervading sirens, Marinette still couldn’t see one hint of a police car. By the time any of them showed up, it’d probably be too late. Ladybug was the one who needed to be out there right now, on the chase… but Ladybug was here, keeping a stupid cat from getting his tail cut off.

And the longer she held onto him, the further the thief got away…

Oh, what the hell.

She’d be able to catch up to the thief a lot faster than Chat would, stuck with Alya’s normal legs.

“Fine, whatever,” Marinette said, releasing his arm. “Kill yourself. What do I care.”

Chat ran off as soon as she let go.

“Alright, Tikki,” she whispered into her jacket pocket. “It’s up to us now to-”

Marinette froze.

Tikki was still upstairs, eating cookies in her room.

Meanwhile Chat was…

She looked up just in time to see him disappear down the same alleyway the robber had.

Shoot.

Shoot, shoot, shoot.

Marinette calculated the time it’d take to run to the back of the bakery, sprint up two flights of stairs, grab Tikki…

Great.

She’d never get to him in time before he got himself killed.

Ignoring the cries of her parents and her own mental screeching, Marinette bolted after him. If Chat was going to die on her, she’d die right along with him so she could keep yelling at his stupid face all the way to the afterlife.

There was a clang in the alley ahead of her. The thief had tossed trashcans across the narrow space, and Chat Noir had tripped right over them. Marinette caught up to him, his glasses askew, and hauled him to his feet.

“What the HELL were you thinking?” she yelled as the police sirens continued to grow louder. A series of car doors slammed from up ahead; a squadron of cars had parked themselves at the opposite end of the alley. Finally.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Chat said, clenching his fists.

“Try me!” Marinette snapped. “Now let’s get out of here before the cops think _we’re_ the bad guys.”

“Wait,” he said. “We’re in the alley right behind the school, right? And if the cops are over there that means they’d probably also be… That means the only way he’d be able to escape is…”

He took off towards the right. Marinette flailed to catch him, but her hands slipped past the edge of his shirt. She let out a final curse to both of them and their bird’s eye knowledge of Paris before forcing her legs into action.

She followed him as he turned left, then right, then right again and then they nearly smacked straight into the thief.

“Give up!” Chat Noir said proudly. “You’re surrounded!”

Surrounded. By two people.

God, give her strength.

“What…?” the thief said. His brief surprise soured into a scowl. “Wait, it’s _you_? Again? Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?” He shook his head. “Guess it’s time for a refresher course.”

The thief pulled back his jacket. Marinette spotted a glint of metal: a knife.

Or worse, a gun.

Her stomach plummeted.

“Chat, get down!” she yelled, tackling him to the ground.

Over the noise of Chat’s groans, the thief begin to chant something. Marinette tilted her head up from the cobbles of the alley to see the thief holding an amulet. The green stone set in its center was glowing.

Thaaaaat wasn’t good.

Marinette tugged on Chat’s arm. “We need to get out of-”

The alley exploded in a burst of light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who's reviewed! You guys make it worth it. <3


	8. Chew Out 3000

The light slowly dissipated, leaving behind dark fuzzy patches in his vision. Adrien groaned and, knees shaking, made his way to his feet. The alleyway was empty, the thief apparently having taken advantage of the newest switch to flee.

Adrien stared at his hands, pale again but still decidedly feminine.

Great.

Just what he needed.

He heard a soft squeak and turned. Marinette was sitting on the cobblestones of the alleyway. Her eyes were wide behind Alya’s glasses as her hands roamed from her nose to her mouth, up around her ears, over her glasses, back to her nose…

“Marinette?” Adrien ventured cautiously. She didn’t respond. “So I know you’re probably freaking out a little right now. I did too when it first happened to me. Everything’s going to be okay. You see, that thief-”

“No! It is _not_ okay!!!” Marinette snapped. Her hands abandoned the exploration of their new face and settled over her forehead. “My God…” she muttered. “Why couldn’t you keep your stupid paws to yourself and lay _low_ for once?”

Adrien frowned. Marinette was acting a bit odd, but… it also made sense in context? After all, they _had_ just switched bodies. It was normal - he thought - for her to having some sort of panic attack or other freak out. More normal than Alya’s excited reaction had been at least. Who knew what kind of troubles the notorious Ladyblogger regularly dragged her sweet friend into.

Which… thinking about that…

“So, umm, there is one thing I should probably tell you,” Adrien started. It was one thing to switch bodies with your best friend; it was another to be double-switched with someone you thought was best friend who’d already been switched once with one of Paris’ star superheroes. “You see… that thief with the amulet has been running around for awhile, and, well, Alya actually already got caught up in this mess awhile-”

“Tell me something I _don’t_ know!” she yelled.

Adrien blinked.

“You… you knew?”

“ _Yes_! And now…!” Marinette groaned at the sky as she rose to her feet. “I _told_ you. I told you time and time again” - she smacked one hand on top of the other - “that our identities are secret for a reason. They keep us safe, they keep a healthy distance between us, they keep…” Her shoulders slumped. “And now all that has been completely _hurled_ out the window because you can never sit still and actually think things through before you pounce!”

Adrien fidgeted, confusion rising as it mixing with a sliver of subconscious guilt. “I’m… not sure I follow.”

Marinette sighed.

“You’re Chat Noir, right?” she said.

He stared at her, the bottom falling out of his lungs. He tried to scramble together a lie.

Nothing came.

“H-how did you know that?” he asked.

“Alya told me. The real Alya. After we…” Marinette broke off into another groan. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Alya. Of course.

So much for any remaining trust he’d placed in her.

Adrien swallowed.

“You, umm… You seem to be taking this all rather… differently?”

He flinched at her sudden glare.

“That’s because I-”

“Hey!” a gruff voice barked.

Adrien and Marinette whirled around to see a policeman running towards them.

“What are you two kids doing out here?” the policeman demanded as he approached. “Don’t you know there’s a dangerous criminal on the run? Didn’t you hear the sirens? Where are your parents?”

Adrien stared at the man, a cat caught in the trapper’s net.

“Sorry, sir,” Marinette suddenly said beside him. “I was stupid, and thought I could somehow help catch the thief. It was all my fault, and my wonderful friend here stopped me before either of us got too close to danger.”

He stared at Marinette, briefly wondering why she was throwing herself under the bus instead of him before realizing, no, she was throwing Alya under the bus, facing temporary punishment now to avoid possible long term consequences.

Crafty… and under-handed…

…and also something he couldn’t say anything about, since it _was_ his fault that they were currently in this mess.

The policeman glanced back and forth between the two of them with a frown.

“Well,” he finally said. “Just make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Soon, another policeman soon arrived on the scene and helped escort the teens back to Marinette’s house. Once inside, they took turns getting yelled at by Marinette’s parents: Marinette shouldering most of the blame for running off, Adrien for chasing after her. After nearly half an hour they finally stopped their tirade and swept Adrien up into a tight hug.

“Umm…” Adrien said as his ribs started to crush together. “Well… since that’s over and I promise I’ll think of my safety first and foremost in the future-”

“Marinette and I have some homework to finish up,” Marinette abruptly said. “We’ll be up in her room.”

She grabbed Adrien by the sleeve, spawning a small yelp, and practically dragged him upstairs along with the bag he’d left in the living room by their abandoned dinner. She flipped the trap door shut behind her and spent several seconds with her arms simply crossed, glaring at him.

“Yeah… so,” Adrien said. He gave a small apologetic shrug. “Sorry?”

“Sorry?” Marinette said, her voice cracking. “You think ‘sorry’ will fix this?! Ughhh… how are you such an _idiot_?!”

“Hey!” Adrien said. True, he was partially - largely - at fault, but she didn’t need to keep being this rude about it. He clung to that defensiveness, pushing way his unease of seeing Marinette as Alya, seeing her get so aggressive. Marinette was Marinette, she wasn’t supposed to be aggressive. “I almost _had_ that amulet of his. If you hadn’t followed and tackled me, none of this would’ve happened!”

“But you didn’t _know_ he was going to pull out the amulet! What if it’d been a knife? Or a gun? You always do these stupid, crazy things because you think you’re _invincible_ and…” Marinette clenched her fists together as her face grew redder and redder. “I can’t believe you are such an _idiot_ , and now I have to tell you _everything_ otherwise the entire city will be in danger and it’s all because you can never sit _still_!”

Everything?

“You know we can still keep secrets even though we’re in each other’s bodies,” Adrien said, trying to salvage what little of the situation he could. “I mean, Alya obviously didn’t keep mine… so that’s not a great base to start on, but I promise I won’t be like her. I won’t even ask about basics. I’ll go through your life completely blind.”

He still couldn’t believe Alya had broken his trust like that. Apparently four months of no Ladybug interviews hadn’t been threat he’d thought it was…

Marinette brushed past him and collapsed down into her desk chair.

“I can’t keep this secret,” she said. “Not from you. Not for however long we’re going to be stuck like this.”

Adrien frowned.

Whatever Marinette thought she simply _had_ to tell Chat Noir, it was clearly tearing her apart.

“Come on,” he said. He tried a last ditch lie complete with stretchy grin. “I mean, we’ve only met each other… once… twice? We’re practically strangers. What could possibly be so important?”

Marinette didn’t respond.

“I’m sure we’ll manage to retrieve the amulet within the next week or so,” he continued. “I’m sure we can work things out until then. Heck, if it’s something to do with school I can even fake a cold or something for you and stay home until we’re back to normal.”

“A week’s too _long_ ,” Marinette moaned.

“Come one, what’s the worst that would happen?”

“The worst?! The worst is what’s already happened!” Marinette snapped. “Alya’s going to be the only one out there running across rooftops and defending the city!”

Adrien blinked at her.

Then he let out a snort and casually waved a hand in front of his face. “What are you talking about?” he said. “Alya’s got Ladybug to help… her… and…”

Marinette locked eyes with him, and any further words lodged in his throat.

No.

It couldn’t be.

Shy Marinette. Gentle Marinette. The Marinette who sat behind him, had been sitting behind him every single day since the start of school, always silently sketching away in her pink notebook.

Marinette couldn’t possibly be…

“Tikki!” Marinette shouted, standing up from her desk chair. “We have a problem!”

Adrien spiraled further into shock as a red creature floated down from Marinette’s bunk.

A kwami.

“Marinette?” it said, facing Adrien with a frown as it glanced back an forth between the two teens.

“ _I’m_ Marinette.” She adjusted Alya’s glasses before jabbing a finger towards Adrien. “ _That_ nuisance is Chat Noir.”

The kwami’s frown deepened. “But didn’t you say…?” Its eyes grew wide. “Oh. Oh, dear.”

“Yes,” Marinette said in clipped tones. “Oh, dear.”

“That’s…” Adrien attempted to say, pointing half-heartedly at the kwami in substitute of intelligent speech.

“Tikki. My kwami,” Marinette said. “Temporarily on loan now, I guess, to you. Just like I assume your kwami is temporarily on loan to Alya?” She sighed before turning to face her bedroom window. “I trust you know enough about the way I fight by now to not need a primer?”

The kwami ventured a smile towards him, and Adrien felt the corners of his lips tug up automatically in response. Meanwhile his mind was still spinning with thoughts of Ladybug…

Oh god.

He was standing in Ladybug’s _body_. He reached out his hands, staring at them with new detached mixture of fascination and horror.

“Chat Noir.”

Adrien snapped to attention. Marinette had turned back from the window and was staring at him with an exhausted but resolute glint in her eyes.

“You’re Ladybug,” he finally managed.

Marinette kept her mouth shut. She swallowed and eventually nodded.

“My Lady?”

“Yes!” she snapped. “Not that your servile platitudes mean anything when you never listen to a word I say!”

His brain toppled and turned in its efforts to connect the pieces of its world back together. Adrien didn’t know what to do, what to say, what to anything, so he let his body… well, Marinette’s… (Ladybug’s?) body kick into autopilot.

She was close enough now to reach out and pick up her hand in both of his.

“My Lady,” he repeated, sweeping into an elegant bow as he lifted her hand toward his mouth.

“Ohhhhh nooo!” Marinette said, snatching it away. She clutched it protectively to her chest. “No! You are _not_ doing that! Not with that body! You are _not_ allowed to flirt with me with my own… _uggggh_.”

She buried her hands in her face, spinning around to let her entire upper half collapse over her desk.

Adrien swallowed.

So much for trying to let instinct defuse the situation.

Though on second thought, instinct was what had gotten them all into this situation in the first place. Why had he thought it would’ve defused _anything_?

Good old, Chat Noir. Never thinking.

_You can never sit still and actually think things through before you pounce!_

“I’m- I’m sorry,” Adrien said, keeping a healthy distance now. He’d already apologized to Marinette, but that was before he’d understood just exactly what he’d done, how much he’d screwed up.

“You stupid cat,” she muttered into her desk. “You stupid, _stupid_ cat…”

Adrien fidgeted, his hands picking at the bottom of Marinette’s shirt as panic began to rise in his chest. He knew how much Ladybug had valued their secret identities, how much she had valued her privacy… and he’d ripped it away from her in one fell swoop of his claws. But at the same time, he’d never _meant_ to screw everything up like this. It was his bad luck striking again.

It was always his bad luck… and his impetuousness… and just… _him_.

His stomach dropped.

_And even if you made the biggest screw up in the history of screw ups… she’d never ever hate you because you’re her Chat Noir._

What if Adrien hadn’t known what he was actually talking about when he’d said that to Alya? What if it was possible for Ladybug to hate Chat Noir after all? What if this was the thing that ultimately broke their partnership? Broke their friendship?

And it was all his doing. All his fault.

He heard someone softly clear their throat beside him.

Ladybug’s kwami. Tikki.

“This isn’t the end of the world,” she said. “For either of you. Sometimes these bumps simply happen. Sometimes they even turn out to be good bumps in the end, making us change directions to places we would’ve never gone before.”

“Easy for you to say,” Marinette muttered as she crossed her arms. Her head lifted, her spine straightening, and a Ladybug feeling permeated the air about her. “Alright,” she said with a deep breath. “Tikki is right about one thing: there’s no use continuing to complain about things that have already happened. We’ll just have to be each other for the next couple days.” She crossed the room, swinging Alya’s bag up and over onto her shoulders. “I already know practically everything about Alya and her family and Tikki can fill you in with the details about mine.”

“Wait!” Adrien said as Marinette knelt down to reopen the trapdoor to the main house. “You’re leaving already?”

“I… I need some time to think,” she said, glancing away. “By myself. I trust you can handle yourself if an akuma attacks between now and tomorrow morning?”

“Well, yeah. At least I think so, but-”

“Good,” Marinette said.

Her hand closed around the the door handle.

“Marinette, wait!”

She paused.

Adrien bit his lip. It was hard to think with her eyes staring into his.

“I- I know who you are now,” he said. “Do you want to maybe… even the playing field? I mean, it’s only fair that you should know who I am too now. That is, not the Chat Noir me, but the real me. Or, I guess, the other half of me, since I’m just as much Chat Noir as I am…”

His eyes drifted towards Marinette’s walls and the many magazines clippings still taped to them. Yeah, he still wasn’t exactly sure what was up with that. Between getting stared at by himself while being trapped in Marinette’s body and still processing everything else, Adrien was not going to be getting an easy sleep tonight.

Marinette sighed. Her hands dropped, coming together by her stomach.

“I don’t want to know,” she said.

Adrien’s gut clenched. The small, logical part of his brain knew that it was just her being exhausted, that she hadn’t even wanted him to know who _she_ really was let alone the other way around, but every other part couldn’t help but take it as a personal rejection.

Ladybug didn’t want to know who he was.

“Just… let me hold on to this one thing that’s still the same,” she continued. “Please. And when this is all over, we can go back to the way things were.” He watched her fingers play with each other. “Or at least try to…”

Adrien stared at her. “How can you say that when-?”

His throat froze up at Ladybug’s resulting glare. Even as he itched to say something, blurt his name out loud despite her wishes, drop a hint, protest, anything… Adrien knew disobeying her direct commands for a second time that evening would just widen the tear between them, and he forced himself to silently nod instead.

He watched as she opened up the trapdoor. Ladybug was walking out into the world, trading one lost secret identity for another, beginning a masquerade as Alya Cesaire.

Which reminded him… Alya…

“Wait!”

Marinette paused again, this time her bottom half already submerged on the stairs. She scowled at him with narrowed eyes that seemed to say, ‘whatever you have, it better be good and quick.’

Adrien cleared his throat. “When Alya told you about what happened with the switch, did she tell _you_ , Marinette? Or _you_ , Ladybug?”

Marinette stared at him, unresponsive, and then sighed.

“She told Ladybug,” she said. “I forced her to after I… After I happened to notice that Chat Noir wasn’t quite acting his usual self.”

It was a generic explanation and it could’ve meant any number of things, but Adrien’s chest swelled with glee all the same. It didn’t matter whether he was off being Adrien or Alya or even the pigeon man down the road, Ladybug knew _him_. One of Ladybug’s greatest fans and followers had tried to follow in her trusted partner’s footsteps, had tried to imitate his mannerisms and copy his puns… and she had failed.

“Wipe that smirk off your face right now,” Marinette said.

His swell of glee vanished. Right, she was still incredibly mad at him.

“And Alya is not hearing a word about this latest switch,” she continued. “Understand? You’re the only who knows about, well, _me_ , and I intend to keep it that way.”

“Woah, woah!” Adrien said. “How are we supposed to do that?! Should we even do that? I mean, you’re in her body now! She has a right to know that it’s been passed over to someone else now!”

“Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you tried to chase after a dangerous thief without your kwami!” Marinette hissed.

“Also, if we’re worried about keeping secret identities a secret,” Adrien continued, not wanting to get into the whole thief thing for the umpteenth time that evening, “then you _have_ to tell her. She’s temporarily Chat Noir at the moment. She knows who I am. If she doesn’t know about our latest switch, _you’re_ the one she’s going to reach out to for Chat Noir questions. Untransformed.”

Marinette groaned.

“Fine,” she said. Her fingers drummed on the sides of the trapdoor. “You have a point. Call her up as soon as I leave. Let her know that we switched… no, I’ll clarify that. Let her know that you, Chat Noir, and me, Marinette, switched. No mentions of Ladybug whatsoever. And keep her away from me by telling her that you don’t want Marinette knowing your secret identity. You can keep being yourself around her when you’re untransformed, but the second you meet her in costume, you are _Ladybug_ and no one else. Got it?”

“Uhh…” Adrien worked through the scenarios: Marinette would stay Marinette to Alya but be Alya to everyone else while Alya would be Adrien to everyone _except_ him while he would be Chat Noir to Marinette and both Chat Noir _and_ Adrien to Alya and Marinette to Nino and the rest of world and then _actual_ Chat Noir and Ladybug would be… That is… He grinned sheepishly. “…maybe?”

Marinette groaned.

“Goodnight!”

She reached up to pull the trap door shut behind her.

“Wait!” Adrien shouted as one last memory hit him.

“ _WHAT!_ ” she snapped.

He coughed.

“You knew who I was today,” he said. “That is, Alya told you who I was _before_ today.”

“Yes,” she said curtly. “And?”

“So… that camembert soup you made me eat?”

For the first time since the alleyway, Marinette grinned. It made his stomach flip-flop, even as she did it behind Alya’s face.

“Goodnight, Chat Noir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slight delay (this chapter gained about 1k words during editing). Hope it's worth it. Again, thanks to everyone who continues to read and leave lovely comments! You guys are my life's blood.


	9. Under No Circumstances May You Talk to Yourself

Adrien stumbled out of the bakery the next morning while hundreds of helpful pointers from Tikki swirled in his head. The echo of her cheerful, squeaky voice pierced through the rest of his grey, mental fog even as she sat silently hidden in Marinette’s backpack.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she’d told him over and over again. “You know identities have always been a touchy subject for Marinette. She just needs some time to let all of this sink in, and after that she’ll be fine.”

Adrien wished he had the kwami’s optimisim.

He crossed the single street to school and arrived rather anti-climatically at the stairs in front of it. No one else was there yet, so he slumped down on the steps and waited.

“Hey, Marinette!” a voice called out after a few minutes.

It was Nino.

“Hey,” Adrien said, brushing off his pants as he stood again.

Nino joined him on the steps and they slowly began to chat about the previous day’s homework, Rise of the Phoenix 2, anything really while they waited for the others… Luckily the four were all friends and talking with Nino as Marinette wasn’t too different from talking to him as Alya. It felt kind of nice, switching his brain to trivial things and forgetting about the major stresses in his life. At the same time, the rest of him still itched to talk to Ladybug. He didn’t want to talk to Nino. He wanted Ladybug there. Marinette there.

It was nearly a blessing when Adrien’s family limo pulled up. Alya stepped out, and Nino migrated away to talk with the person who he _thought_ was his best friend.

Left again in silence, Adrien leaned back again the stone railing, its edge pressing into the back of his arms. As Alya and Nino started passed by on their way up the steps, Alya caught Adrien’s eye and frowned. She frowned, murmuring something to Nino, who briefly glanced between Alya and Adrien before nodding and continuing onto class.

Alya sighed as she approached and then leaned back against the wall with Adrien.

“What’s up?” she asked.

Adrien glumly swallowed. He’d called up Alya last night and told her the basics of what’d happened, dodging around the Ladybug bits as per her wishes.

“Marinette hasn’t talked to me since the second switch,” he said.

“Well,” Alya said. “I can’t blame her _too_ much. I mean **…** you were pretending to be me for the last week. Obviously neither of us were lying to her on purpose, but still, it’s gotta sting.” Alya crossed her arms. “She’s probably feeling guilty too.”

Adrien stared at her. “Marinette? Guilty?”

“Think about it from her perspective: an impostor’s been running around as her best friend this whole time and she wasn’t able to tell the difference. It’s like something out of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, you know. All of us take pride in being able to recognize the people close to us despite the faces they wear, or at least recognize that something’s _different_ , and when we don’t… well.”

She shrugged.

Adrien frowned. His mind plunged back into all the adrenaline-coursing missions he’d shared with Ladybug. How many times had they put their lives in each other’s hands? How many times had they pounded their fists together in exhilarated victory? Night after night, adorations and cheesy pickup lines had gushed from his lips **.** His Valentine’s day poem, written and rewritten a thousand times and still not right **…**

And all this time, she’d been sitting right behind him.

Pride… hah.

He really was a stupid cat.

“Tell you what,” Alya said, grabbing Adrien’s arm and dragging him forward. “It’s been, what? Only fourteen hours since your guys’ switch? How about we both go to class, act as normal as possible, and if Marinette doesn’t forgive the two of us by the end of the day, I’ll tell her your real identity myself? That should cheer her up.”

“No!” Adrien quickly said. He glanced around the front of the school; Ivan and Mylene were nearby but mostly out of earshot. “Remember what I said,” he whispered. “If you tell _anyone_ about my real identity-”

“Yeah, yeah. Ladybug won’t agree to anymore interviews with me for the next four months,” Alya finished. “I’m just saying, it might be worth the sacrifice on my part **…** ”

“No,” Adrien repeated firmly. “It’s not.”

“Marinette!” a voice snapped.

Adrien flinched.

Speak of the devil. Ladybug. Whatever.

Marinette was standing - as Alya - by the street, glaring daggers at the two of them. Adrien watched her take a sharp breath and then march straight up to the two of them.

“Sorry,” Marinette told Alya, “I need to borrow her for a moment,” and then promptly yanked Adrien away.

“Owww! What was that for?” Adrien said once he’d been dragged all the way into the school’s courtyard and out of Alya’s earshot.

“Why were you talking to Adrien?” Marinette hissed.

Adrien stared at her… and then took a moment to recalibrate names in his head.

“Because he’s a classmate? I’m allowed to talk to your classmates when I’m in your body, aren’t I?”

“Not. Him.”

“Why not?” Adrien twisted his head towards the steps to try and get a glimpse of his own body again, but Marinette yanked him back, pulling him further into the courtyard. “Is there something wrong with the kid?”

Marinette’s eyes narrowed into a glare.

“A rough and tumble cat like you wouldn’t know the first thing about a person like him,” Marinette said. She sighed. “You want to keep getting on my bad side though? Fine. Go on. Talk to him.”

Adrien was still utterly, completely lost. Tikki’s helpful reminders echoed in his head again, telling him to just go along with whatever Marinette wanted for now… but he was curious… and also scared of what would happen if he was _too_ curious.

“Does this have anything to do with those magazine photos on your walls?” he asked before he could stop himself. He’d also asked Tikki about them last night, but she hadn’t divulged a word.

Marinette completely stiffened.

Before he knew what was happening, she had grabbed his shirt by the collar and yanked it close to her face.

“If you say a word about those to anyone,” she hissed. “I will _end_ you.”

Adrien swallowed painfully, his eyes frozen wide under the onslaught of her death glare.

He hadn’t even known Marinette _had_ a death glare.

Well, he guessed Ladybug did… though it’d never been focused on him. Well, it’d never focused this intently at least.

Practical speech continued to flit out of reach, so he nodded stiffly. Marinette let go off his collar and he stumbled back, heart thrashing against his chest. If Adrien happened to have nine lives like his name sake, he’d probably already lost four of them in the past twenty-four hours.

He let Marinette grab him by the arm again and drag him into class. As he sat down, he realized they were sitting in opposite seats. Sensing the charge still in the air, he stopped himself from mentioning it. Today’s challenge would be to act less cat-like and more fly-on-the-wall.

Tikki and Alya had to be right. She had to calm down eventually.

Nino had already made his way to his desk, so Alya walked in by herself moments later. She smiled at him, and he started to give her an automatic wave in return… until he withered under the glare of Marinette beside him… and peripherally beyond that, a somehow even _more_ murderous Chloe.

Adrien’s hand sunk back into his lap.

This was going to be a long day.

* * *

Adrien swiveled around in Marinette’s bedroom desk chair.

Alone.

He’d invited her over after the end-of-day school bell had rung, but she’d cooly turned him down. And that was after not speaking a word to him during class… or during lunch…

Alya had popped up from out of nowhere right after that, the words “Chat Noir” bubbling on the tip of her tongue, and the less said about _that_ resulting fiasco the better. At least Adrien’s identity was still a secret. That had to be good, he guessed, although he couldn’t really see a way for Ladybug to hate him even more than she currently did.

The chair came to a slowly stop with him facing the center of Marinette’s room, and he sighed.

Obviously things were going to get better. They had to. And, as the others kept reminding him, it’d only been a day since the switch. Marinette had tried her best to keep her identity a secret for so long… It only made sense that things would have to wait a bit.

At the same time, he didn’t want things to get better _later_ , he wanted them better _now_.

Adrien slunk off the chair and slithered into a crumpled heap on Marinette’s floor. Back on the desk, his and Alya’s homework waited in a giant, messy pile, his switch with Marinette meaning nothing to Nathalie who continued to jam-pack his - well, Alya’s - schedule each and every day. He hadn’t minded before, when it’d been just a bit of extra work and he could balance it with hanging out with Marinette. It’d been fun, even.

Now the thought of working on homework sheet after homework sheet was soul sucking.

Just another big blah in a day of blahs **…**

He glanced up. As always his face stared down at him from every direction on the walls.

“Are you sure I can’t take those down, Tikki?” he asked as the kwami nibbled on cookies nearby.

“Unless you want to keep making Marinette more upset, then no.”

Adrien frowned.

There had to be an obvious, simple thing that he was missing. It pressed against his thoughts, just frustratingly out of reach…

Because when it came down to it, Marinette didn’t really talk to him too much as Adrien. She did occasionally, but it’d never been in _that_ way. She’d always been a solid friend, to him, to everyone in the class, not like Chloe who was always trying to physically drape herself over him **…** not like himself, trying to drape himself over Ladybug **…** because that’s what you did if _that_ was a thing…

Wasn’t it?

Perhaps the pictures weren’t even about himself. That is, he was always wearing stuff from his father’s collections in his photoshoots and Marinette _was_ a fashion designer and she _had_ entered that one hat contest of his father’s **…**

His cellphone rang.

Adrien scrambled back up to his feet and then stared at the call screen.

It was Marinette.

His thumb slipped on the answer button a couple times before finally pressing down.

“H-Hello?” he managed.

“Chat Noir?” she said. “Have you seen the news?!”

“Umm **…** no?”

“Turn it on! Now!”

Not one to argue (never one to argue), Adrien fumbled for her computer mouse and navigated to the first news-stream he could find. As the video feed started buffering and the first couple seconds loaded, he had to grip the desk for support.

“Adrien Agestre, son of world renown fashion designer Gabriel Agreste was kidnapped this afternoon while en route to his family home,” a newswoman’s voice was saying as Adrien watched footage of his family’s limo being hijacked by none other than the museum thief. In addition to the amulet that was the cause of all their troubles, the man was now wearing some kind of equally ancient headpiece; the footage showed him ripping one of the doors off the limo in a single pull. “Adrien Agreste is currently being held captive,” the newswoman continued. “The ransom is reported to be an priceless, ancient Egyptian ring that was showcased earlier this week as part of a private Agreste fashion exhibit.”

Adrien blinked at the screen.

“Chat Noir!” Marinette said. “Are you there?!”

“Oh,” he said blankly. “Yeah. I’m here.”

“You need to go rescue him!”

That snapped him out of his daze.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Adrien said. “Against that thief? By myself? Don’t you remember what happened yesterday?”

“This is different! Adrien needs your help! And you won’t have to do it by yourself,” Marinette said. “You can get Alya to help you. She’ll have to be the Chat Noir to your Ladybug today.”

Adrien’s eyes flicked back to the computer screen. They were replaying a clip of the thief one-handedly tossing his driver out of the seat and driving off…

“Uh, Alya _might_ be a bit a busy right now.”

“Busy?! Busy with what?!”

“Umm… that’s…”

Something knocked at the window. Adrien turned and stared.

Plagg was hovering outside, a sheepish, terrified grin on his face.

Great.

If the kwami was here, that meant he’d gotten separated from Alya. She’d be totally defenseless right now. That meant…

Adrien paused.

“Marinette, are you free right now?” he asked.

“Am I- Am I _free_?!” she sputtered back. “Yes! And I can’t do _anything_ , which is why I’m yelling at you to-”

“Get over to the bakery as fast as you can,” Adrien said as he opened the window to let Plagg inside. He took a deep breath. “I have another idea in mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we start to barrel on towards the end, I have no intention of pulling back on the shenanigans brakes whatsoever.


	10. Cat's Out of the Bag

Adrien and Marinette surveyed the building from a neighboring rooftop. The sun had halfway set, shadows draping over walls and windows, but that didn’t matter to Adrien. He finally had use of his cat-enhanced vision again.

“They’re on the third floor,” he said after a quick survey.

His fingers gripped against the roof’s wall, muscles ready to pounce. He could practically feel Ladybug yanking his tail back in patient irritation.

God, it felt good to be himself again.

Okay.

 _Kind_ of himself.

Black hair, black suit… It was a new look.

“You want us to do _what_?!” Marinette had shouted after re-arriving in her own room.

“Well, Alya is… umm, busy,” Adrien said. “And we can’t just send Plagg back after he came all this way, and I do better as Chat Noir anyway, and since you do better as Ladybug I just thought…”

Marinette glared at him.

“Did _anything_ I said about maintaining the status quo manage to penetrate your thick skull?”

“Look, d’you want to rescue Adrien or not?”

Marinette was clearly frustrated. The pros and cons of the decision grappled with themselves across her face until she was cornered into what was -really - the only _practical_ choice. She snatched the earrings from his outstretched hand.

“Tikki!” she commanded. “Transform me!”

Adrien had followed her lead with Plagg, and then they’d been off, clambering up through Marinette’s roof door, following police cars and helicopters to the building where the thief was holding out for his ransom.

“Alright,” Ladybug- no, Marinette said beside him. “We have to think about strategy this time. Not just rushing in.”

“Right,” Adrien said with a firm nod.

Marinette turned towards him with a single lifted eyebrow and sighed.

“I’ll go against my gut and believe you’re actually with me strategically this time,” she said. She paused to survey the mass of police cars gathered below; one of the officers was clutching a microphone as he shouted up commands for the thief to stand down. “Do you think Gabriel Agreste will give up the ring?”

Adrien frowned.

His heart wanted to say ‘yes.’

His stomach wasn’t quite as sure.

“What do you think the ring does?” he asked, deflecting the question. “We already know the amulet can make people switch bodies, and from the news video it looks like the headpiece gives him super strength…”

“Let’s try to avoid getting to the point where we find out,” Marinette said.

Adrien nodded.

A period of silence followed. He glanced at Marinette, not too surprised when he found her deep in concentrated thought. If her eyes had the power to pierce the building’s windows, they’d probably bypass the thief and burn straight through the ropes currently holding Alya captive.

“There’s one big flaw with his powers,” she suddenly said.

“What’s that?”

“We know exactly what’s coming. We’ve dealt with super-strengthened akuma before, and we’ve already switched bodies.” She stared at her hands briefly as if in recollection. “He’s lost both elements of surprise.”

She clenched her hands into fists and then fell into silent thought again.

Adrien sighed.

“We’re just going to end up going with our normal plan again,” he said. “Aren’t we?”

“Hmm? Which one?”

“You know. I do the distracting. You get the stuff.”

Marinette frowned. “He has Adrien hostage though. That might complicate things.”

“I’m sure the kid can handle himself,” Adrien said with a flippant wave of his hand. At Marinette’s glare, he quickly added, “Or we be careful with him. That works too.”

Marinette shook her head in disbelief.

“Alright,” she said, turning her attention back to the building. “Getting Adrien out of harm’s way is our first priority. Then we should aim at grabbing the thief’s headpiece. He has to finish that chant thing before he can use the amulet and we’ve both been switched already, so it shouldn’t be able to cause too much trouble.” She frowned. “I wish we could see a bit better into that room. The windows are filthy!”

“Well, I suppose we _could_ put off the rescue until the washers come by…”

“Ha ha.” Marinette crinkled her nose. “Well, I guess there’s always Lucky Charm for when we _really_ need it.”

“You know,” Adrien drawled, “for all your complaints about me constantly rushing into things, you have to have realized by now that Lucky Charm is pretty much _the_ definition of winging it.”

He got a punch on the shoulder in response. Moments after that they were leaping between the rooftops, landing with ease next to the stairwell that would take them down into the building itself.

Adrien curled his hand around the door, hoping it was unlocked. Cataclysm would take care of it sure enough, but he’d been hoping he could save it for later just incase things got truly tricky…

“Wait,” he said, perking back up.

“What is it?”

“This thief’s smart,” he said, turning to face Marinette. “He’s fought us before. He _knows_ that I’m always the distraction.”

Marinette stared at him for a moment before smirking.

“Alright,” she said. “What do you have in mind?”

* * *

For the first time in, well, awhile, Chat Noir hung back while his Ladybug charged in.

As it turned out, the thief wasn’t much a small talker and instantly began trying to pummel her into the floor. Adrien stared, fingers and legs trembling, through a cracked doorway. Ladybug dodged the thief’s blows easily, but that didn’t stop Adrien’s heart from beating like a butterfly’s.

Did butterflies even have fast heartbeats? Hummingbirds maybe? Wait. They had fast wings, but what about their hearts? Were they any faster than other birds’? Mice did though. That was for cer-

Damnit!

He wasn’t made for just sitting back like this.

Ladybug- no, Marinette, he kept reminding himself - continued to weave and dodge her way around the large room as the thief followed in increasingly angry pursuit.

As she jumped sideways, dodging a kick with unhuman ease, Adrien sighed.

How could she think that he could _ever_ go back to their status quo? Maybe there was still time to help change her mind. And if that didn’t happen, perhaps he could go and approach her as Adrien anyway… It’d probably end up backfiring down the road, but maybe he’d be able to use the short amount of time to develop a friendship close enough that she wouldn’t want to? It was silly and naive, really, but-

The building shook as Marinette dodged and the thief punched a fresh hole straight through to the second floor.

Aaaand the time for rambling thoughts had passed.

He snuck into the large, open studio, careful not to trip over his own tail. He quickly locked eyes with Alya, gagged and tied up with rope in one of the corners. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, but she didn’t make a sound.

Adrien frowned. Marinette had ordered him to free Alya and get her to safety before anything else… but doing that would definitely attract the thief’s attention. They’d lose their one shot at a surprise attack.

As if reading his mind, Alya nodded and gestured her head towards the thief.

Well, that settled it.

Who was he to disagree with the wishes of the captive herself?

Before he could start thinking of any possible downsides, he pivoted and ran towards the battle happening on the other side side of the room. His eyes locked onto the back of the thief’s headpiece. If he could pry it off before the thief noticed, the rest of the battle could be over in no time flat.

The thief’s back was still turned away from him. Adrien’s fingertips extended out towards the headpiece…

…and then he glanced down at the amulet around the thief’s neck. The source of this whole mess.

What if Marinette’s confidence in getting the headpiece first was wrong? What if the thief used the amulet again and it knocked both of them briefly unconscious and the thief made yet _another_ get away? True, super strength could be tricky, but Marinette had said it before: they could _handle_ super-strength…

The thief suddenly spun around and slammed his fist into Adrien’s chest.

He flew backwards, pounding into a nearby wall. Across the room, beyond his now blurry vision, Ladybug winced.

Ow…

“Shoddy! Just shoddy!” the thief remarked. “I thought the great Ladybug and Chat Noir would be a far more formidable challenge. Or did you forget I had a hostage?”

Adrien’s muscles groaned as he pushed himself up from the rubble of the half-destroyed wall. The thief was charging towards Alya now. Shoot, Ladybug was going to chew him out so hard for this one.

Half way across the room, the thief faltered, pulled back by Marinette’s yoyo which was now wrapped his right arm. Marinette tugged harder, and the thief’s feet slipped against the wooden floor.

Right, no time to stop and worry. Time for round two.

Adrien steadied himself, ready to jump back into the fray. Sure, they might have lost the element of surprise, but when had that ever defeated them?

The thief’s eyes flashed back and forth between the two superheroes, and then he began to chant.

Adrien’s stomach dropped.

If his gut was right, he couldn’t let him get to the end.

He sprinted towards the thief, channeling all his energy into his legs. If he could just reach the amulet before the end of the chat… The jewel of the amulet was already glowing green. Adrien ignored the beads of sweat trickling down the sides of his mask.

His fingertips were centimeters away when the thief finished the last word.

Adrien flinched by reflex and threw his hands in front of his face, preemptively shielding his eyes from the burst of light.

It didn’t come.

Both Adrien and thief froze, blinking into each other’s eyes.

Adrien looked down at the amulet. It was still growing green, but the mysterious light was already starting to fade. What the…

Marinette gave a final yank on her yoyo, and the thief slammed down onto the floor.

“Chat Noir!” she shouted. “Now!”

Right.

Adrien crouched over the now fallen thief and snatched away the headpiece. His fingers hesitated before grabbing the amulet as well. The last thing he needed was it to suddenly go off, like a bomb on a faulty timer, but the metal stayed cool and dormant in his hands. Both magical artifacts secured, Adrien poked the thief’s unresponsive cheek and then lifted an eyelid.

The fall had knocked him unconscious.

Adrien caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Marinette had crossed the room and was kneeling down next to Alya, about to untie the ropes that held her.

Alya let out a large gasp as the rope covering her mouth fell away. She stared back and forth between the two superheroes.

“Chat Noir?” she said, staring at Adrien. “But I… and then you’d said you switched with Marinette, which means…” Alya turned to Ladybug. To her own body, dressed up as Ladybug. “Marinette?” she breathed. “Have you been Ladybug this entire time?!”

Adrien’s stomach plummeted.

Ohhhh no.

“Wait,” Marinette said, her hands frozen around the remaining rope. “What?”

“Nothing!” Adrien said. Shoot! He was too far away to cover Alya’s mouth back up. “She’s talking nonsense!”

“Oh. My. God,” Alya said, seemingly oblivious to the situation playing out. Her arms and legs were still tied up, and her mouth hung wide open. “I’m totally Ladybug rescuing myself right now! How cool!”

Adrien let out a groan, burying his face in his gloved hands.

Marinette’s eyes slowly widened.

“Alya?” she whispered.

“Yep, in the flesh,” she replied with a grin. “Although, I guess not _my_ flesh. Oh… wait.” Her grin faded. “Oops.”

Marinette spun, her face deathly pale as she jabbed at finger at Adrien.

“YOU’RE ADRIEN AGRESTE?!?!?”

Adrien winced, not daring to lift his face from the protection of his hands, scant as it was.

So much for what remained of Ladybug’s demanded secrecy. Might as well start picking up the pieces.

“Ummm, yeah?” Adrien said, forcing himself to look up. His eyes overshot Marinette and continued straight to the ceiling. “So the cat’s out of the bag, I guess?” He froze. “Wait! I- I didn’t mean that as a pun. I’m trying to be serious right now, honestly. I know you said you didn’t want to know who I was and… Marinette?”

She didn’t seem to be listening to him at all. His lady, his partner in crime, was staring blankly ahead. At what, he couldn’t be sure. Her mouth parted slightly, and she started taking slow, backwards, methodical steps away from both of them.

“Marinette?” he repeated.

“I have to go,” she said.

And then she fled.

“Wait!” Adrien shouted. His first instinct was to chase after her, but- “You can’t just leave me tied- I mean, Alya tied- I said, wait!”

He stopped.

She was already gone. Alya sat patiently, still tied up behind him. The girl didn’t seem to be upset at the fact that her best friend had just ditched her… or that her best friend had been Ladybug this entire time without telling her.

Adrien made his way back and started working on the next knot by her wrists.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Still shocked obviously because, _wow_ , but I’m giving my brain time to process it,” Alya said. “You?”

Adrien paused for a moment before nodding. He finished the first knot and moved onto the one by Alya’s ankles as she started to rub feeling back into her hands.

The silence grew more intense.

Of course, the unconscious body in the middle of the room didn’t help matters.

Neither did police presence still out on the street, the echoes of their microphone still drifting in through the windows. They’d be entering the building any minute now. Sooner if Ladybug gave them the signal that the thief had been taken care of.

“Sorry she ditched us like that,” Adrien said before he even really knew why he was saying it.

“No, it’s okay.” Alya let out a snort. “Honestly, given the circumstances and, well, _you_ … that could’ve gone a lot worse.”

Adrien paused, fingers still on the loops of the knot.

“Wait. Me? Worse, how?”

Alya stared at him.

“Nooo,” she said as her eyes widened. “You mean you spent almost two weeks with Marinette _as_ me, and you never figured it out?”

“Figured _what_ out?”

Alya’s hands shot out and gripped him by both shoulders. Her eyes pierced straight into his.

“Holy snap,” she said. “You have no idea.”

Adrien frowned. “Is this about Marinette being Ladybug because you really can’t tell _anyone_ about-”

“No! It’s about the crush she has on you! On Adrien Agreste!”

As soon as the words passed her lips, her hands flew back to cover them. The tops of her eyes stretched wide, touching her eyebrows. Despite her apparent shock though, a grin started to peek past the edges of her hands.

Adrien blinked.

His mind raced back and back and back: the way Marinette hadn’t let him talk to “Adrien” out of fear for ruining things, her incredible panic when “Adrien” had been kidnapped this afternoon, all the magazine clippings that Tikki had refused to let him take down…

They were all things that should have been obvious really. Things that _were_ obvious. In hindsight.

“Oh,” he said.

The next series of thoughts hit him in a rush.

Marinette liked him. Marinette was Ladybug. Ladybug liked him.

“Oh.”


	11. Brave Mew World

Marinette’s world was locked onto one singular thought.

Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir.

Adrien Agreste had been Chat Noir the _entire time_.

Adrien Agreste had switched bodies with Alya, and she’d pulled him into her room, had made him wear that dress, had let him see all her magazine clippings…

The magazine clippings.

Her stomach clenched.

Marinette didn’t realize where she’d been running until she was standing in the center of her own bedroom with the proof of her one-sided obsession staring at her from every possible angle. She tore them down, counting each and every one in the process.

Twenty-three.

Why on earth did have have _twenty-three_ different pictures of him plastered on her wall? Surely one… no, maybe _two_ would have sufficed. Alright. Three at the very most.

Marinette groaned as she crumpled the last of them in her hands.

She was worse than Chloe.

Her computer background was next; she switched it out for one of the system defaults. As she did so, Marinette couldn’t help but feel that all of it was too little, too late. He’d already seen everything. In his eyes, she was probably already some weird kind of stalker.

Marinette slumped down in her chair and buried her hands in her thick waves of hair… which was when she remembered that she was still in Alya’s body.

Which meant Adrien was in hers.

Oh God.

Adrien Agreste was in her body.

Marinette froze, staring the opposite wall for over a full minute as her mind spun out from under her.

Adrien Agreste was in her body.

Somehow she couldn’t figure out whether that was better or worse than Chat Noir in her body. Both of them were in her body. The same person… in her body.

Marinette groaned again.

How had her life come to this?

And then, just because the two of them had recovered the artifacts didn’t mean they’d automatically be able to switch back. They still had to figure out the incantation to use the amulet. For whatever reason, Marinette didn’t think the thief would be too keen on sharing it.

Which meant Adrien would be staying in her body for the time being.

Which meant Adrien would be sleeping in her room tonight. A sliver of her brain whispered that he’d already slept there the previous night, that - like the magazines and her computer background - anything she did now to change first impressions was useless, but that rationale was drowned out by the panic coursing through her. She leapt out of her chair and started on a mad cleaning spree.

What if he thought she was a slob? What if he thought that… he thought…

A creak by the hatch that led to her roof made her freeze.

“Marinette?” came the sound of her own voice, drifting gently down.

Shoot. Shoot. _Shoot._

It was him. As her. As Chat Noir…

Marinette didn’t move, didn’t say anything as he descended the ladder awkwardly holding out the artifacts.

“I didn’t give them back to the police yet,” he said. “Since I figure we’ll need them to switch us all back. Told them all it was all superhero and magic business, and they said we could temporarily borrow them, but…” Adrien frowned. “I don’t know how any of it all works. The police arrested the thief, but he’s not talking. They don’t even know his name yet. Apparently there weren’t any matches when they checked his fingerprints, so it might be awhile if we wait for that.” He paused, obviously expecting some sort of acknowledgement or response. “Ladybug?”

“Oh,” Marinette forced herself to say. “Umm… yes. Good. Wait, no! I mean, that’s bad. I mean…” She groaned as she sunk to the floor, covering her head with both arms. Conversation between the two of them shouldn’t be that hard anymore. She _knew_ how to talk to Chat. She’d talked with him, joked with him, traded insults with him… Unfortunately, whatever hope there was of _that_ was currently being swamped by Adrien-overload.

She was stuck being a gibbering idiot at both sides of him now.

“So I was thinking,” Adrien continued. “Maybe Tikki and Plagg know something we don’t? If we de-transform, we can get their help.”

Marinette didn’t say anything.

Adrien coughed.

“Umm, though if I do de-transform, could I grab some cheese from your downstairs?” Adrien asked. “Plagg’s not the most cooperative on an empty stomach.”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Sure.”

“Great.”

Marinette flinched as he released his transformation. She still half-expected to see Adrien when the mask disappeared and was equally disappointed and relieved when she saw herself staring back instead.

“Talk about your crazy evenings,” his black kwami said as he started to drift around the room. “Where’s my cheese?”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “If you’d been _listening_ , you’d know I was about to get it.”

“So? Go get it.”

Adrien grumbled as he trudged out of Marinette’s bedroom, shutting the trap door behind him.

Marinette was left to share the dark silence with the kwami.

“You can de-transform too,” he said. “Nothing left that anyone doesn’t know any more.”

She wanted to glare at him but couldn’t find the energy. She trudged over to her couch by the window instead and collapsed, her hands clasped tightly in her lap as she released her own transformation.

“Marinette…” Tikki said as soon as last of the spots disappeared.

Marinette looked up at her with wide, sleep-shadowed eyes. Her kwami only gave her a cautious smile in response.

Plagg cleared his throat.

“Tikki?” he said. “You might want to help me look at these if you’re not doing anything else.” He hovered over to the two artifacts that Chat Noir had left on her desk.

For the next several minutes, her room was filled with their hushed mutterings. The trap door squeaked, and Marinette flinched again. Adrien popped his head through a second later, cheese and bread in hand. Plagg instantly abandoned the artifacts to collect his tribute.

“Your dad assumed I’d want both when he saw me grabbing the cheese,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Was kind of hard to say no… You want some?”

“Oh…” Marinette stared at the bread on the plate he was offering to her. “Umm…” She thought she was hungry, but the thought of actually _eating_ made her not hungry anymore. “I’m okay. Thanks.”

“Right.”

Marinette remained on the couch as Adrien went to inspect the kwamis’ progress.

“Learned anything?” he asked, hands clasped lightly behind his back.

Tikki frowned. “I won’t lie. Not much…” She pointed to the amulet. “There aren’t any engravings on it at all, so if the incantation that activates it is written down anywhere, it’s not here. But!” she quickly added, seeing the way that Chat Noir and Marinette’s faces immediately fell, “Plagg and I think we recognize the craftsmanship of the amulet… and I know someone who might be able to help.”

“Really?” Marinette asked.

“No,” Plagg drawled. “That’s why she just said it.”

That got him an instant smack from Adrien. “Hey,” he said. “Just because I have to put up with you on a daily basis, doesn’t mean Marinette has to.”

Marinette blushed.

“So… this friend, Tikki,” she managed to ask. “Where is he? Or she?”

“He’s somewhat nearby, but it will probably be faster if I go by myself,” the kwami said. She started to heave the amulet up into the air with her.

“Wait!” Marinette said. “You’re leaving? For how long?”

“If everything goes smoothly? Shouldn’t be more than a couple nights.”

“A couple nights?! What if there’s an akuma attack?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll manage to find you.”

“What about the headpiece?” Adrien asked.

“We’re pretty sure they’re unrelated,” Plagg said. “But the two of you should continue to hold onto it, just in case. When we’re done with the amulet, you can return both of them back to the police together.”

Tikki was already passing by her as she neared the open window. Marinette’s heart raced, clawing against her chest and the thought of several more days like this.

“Tikki! Wait!”

Her kwami paused, her eyes wide and innocent.

“Tikki, you can’t just leave me like this,” Marinette whispered. “I…” She glanced back. Adrien and Plagg were still standing over by her desk. She swallowed, deathly conscious of the two listening in. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Oh, Marinette…” Tikki said with soft sigh. “That’s easy.”

“It is?”

“You just have to be yourself.”

Marinette deflated. If she had a euro for every time in her life she’d been given that answer…

Tikki drifted out the window, amulet in hand and oblivious to Marinette’s deep frown. Behind her, Plagg and Adrien had started some sort of squabble about the cheese.

She took a deep breath and then let it out in one steady stream.

Just… how?

How was _this_ her life?

* * *

If school had been frustrating before - with Adrien seated in front like some sort of Adonis reborn and Marinette paralyzed behind, then it was pure torture now.

Marinette was sitting next to Adrien. Barely two feet away from Adrien. Adrien who was Chat Noir. Adrien who was in her body. Adrien who was now saying good morning and good night and all the things in between to her parents. Adrien who was taking her _tests_ for her.

Back when she’d only known him as Chat Noir, he’d tried to assure her that he was a very good test taker.

It hadn’t calmed her anxiety then, and it definitely wasn’t calming it now.

Smothered by the thick silence, Marinette let her head drop down into her arms even as she scribbled in the next answer. Eventually she finished, printed Alya’s name on it, passed it in, and then defaulted to doodling new dress designs in her notebook. The minutes started to flow quicker, the work sucking her in. She was starting to feel halfway normal - that is by not feeling anything at all, when there was a nudge on her arm.

She glanced to her right.

To Adrien.

He had a piece of scratch paper out and was slowly pushing it towards her, keeping his eyes locked on the front of the room as he did so. There was something written at the top of the paper.

> **some test… huh?**

A note.

She and Adrien were about to start passing notes… that is, assuming she had the courage to write back.

Her eyes flicked up to the front of the classroom. Miss Bustier was still engrossed in collecting the remaining tests, although their teacher probably wouldn’t care too much even if she _did_ see them, since Marinette and Alya passed notes all the time… or if not _all_ the time, a pretty decent amount.

Still, this was different, because it _wasn’t_ her and Alya and…

Marinette snatched the paper to her and, cheeks blushing, scribbled out a response—

> _Haha, yeah, it was…_

—and then mentally screamed at the ceiling.

What kind of response had that been?! It’d been a non-response, worse than a response!! But then Adrien started writing again, temporarily distracting her from her self-chronicled descent into madness.

> **if only we could defeat some akuma by listing out all the times france and england had a go at it, right?**

Marinette frowned.

> _Don’t say that. Next thing you know some weird history akuma will appear and we’ll have to._

Adrien grinned as he scribbled out his next response.

> **good thing I always get perfect marks then**

She lifted an eyebrow.

> _Showoff._

> **what can I say? it’s part of the curse of being me.**

Marinette paused, her next two possible responses clashing against each other. She wanted to write something about Adrien, about how the real Adrien was supposed to be humble about his talents, but then… Who wasn’t to say Chat Noir was the real Adrien? What if Adrien’s kindness this whole time had just been part of an act? No, that couldn’t be true. Marinette refused to believe that was true.

But at the same time everything was so…

In her hesitation, she felt the paper being tugged from under her fingers. Adrien started to write again, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. He passed it back.

> **did I say something wrong?**

Marinette’s cheeks burned.

> _No! No, not at all!_

She let Adrien look at the paper just long enough to stop himself from feeling any worse, then tugged it back to write a full response.

> _I was just thinking how nice it’s going to be this week, getting perfect scores on everything. My parents are going to think I’m some sort of miracle child and then have it all yanked away after we switch back to ourselves._

Marinette passed it back. Her heart thumped against her chest as Adrien stared at it.

And then kept staring at it.

Her skin grew clammy as she wondered if _she_ was the one who’d said something wrong now. Finally Adrien’s pen began scribbling, and she breathed out an unconscious sigh of relief.

> **haha, I’m dreading the opposite. alya’s been amazing sticking through everything but I dont think her grades are going to be enough to impress my father. you might have to solo a couple missions coming up. I have a feeling he’s going to ground me bad :P**

Marinette blinked at the paper.

Great. Another emotional roadblock.

She knew Adrien had some issues with his dad, a _lot_ of issues with his dad, and obviously grade swapping during these two weeks was difficult for everyone… but what was she supposed to say? Did he want her to offer sincere consolation like Adrien would? Or did he want her to help shrug off the tension with a joke like Chat Noir always did?

On top of all that, Marinette didn’t want to take too long thinking about it in case Adrien started worrying about her silence again…

She bit her lip, pen hovering over the paper but never touching.

Then Ivan wandered up to the front, the last to turn in his test, and Miss Bustier pressed on with the next part of the day’s lesson. Adrien shrugged and returned to his note-taking. Guilt and relief both rushed through her system.

Marinette repositioned the paper with their conversation directly in front of her, re-reading through each and every word.

She and Adrien had talked.

The two of them had actually _talked_ … well, technically they’d “written” back and forth, but still. She was counting it as a valid conversation.

Her lips quirked into a smile smile.

Perhaps everything could end up working out after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heart and prayers go out to both the people and families involved in the attack in Nice this week. To all my readers, stay safe. <3


	12. World's Best Wingman: Part Deux

The lunch bell rang.

“Hey, Nino?” Alya said, turning in her seat as their fellow classmates started to file out of the room. “Mind if I take a rain check on lunch today? I need to talk to Alya and Marinette about some stuff.”

Nino raised an eyebrow. “Stuff? What kind of stuff?”

“Oh, you know…” Alya sharply nodded towards where the real Adrien was sitting in Marinette’s body. “Stuff.”

“Ohhhh… stuff. Right,” Nino said. Alya felt the slightest twinge of guilt - she’d probably just started yet another rumor about Adrien Agreste’s personal life, but it was still only a twinge. “Well, make sure to keep your head dude.”

Nino clapped his hand against Alya’s back and then left.

Alya, Marinette, and Adrien met up and gathered in an empty corner of the school library. Alya, still quite new to the whole superhero thing on a participatory level, sat back and listened while Marinette gave them all the official Artifact Translation Status Update.

“I’m not exactly sure what to do,” Marinette said, keeping her gaze pointedly away from her own body, almost like she was intentionally delivering the update to her shoes. “Tikki’s not back yet, and I haven’t heard from her since the last akuma attack.”

“I’m sure she’ll back soon,” Adrien said. Unlike the Chat Noir that Alya knew, the Chat Noir she’d videotaped hours of footage of, he kept his hands clutched around his backpack straps and far from Marinette. “We should just keep our chins up until then.”

Marinette nodded.

Alya frowned. She could take a photo of the pair, open it on her computer, draw jail cells around the two of them, and no one would accuse her of photoshop.

Marinette twisted her foot back and forth in a small arc against the floor. “So… until tomorrow?”

“Oh,” Adrien said. “Umm… yeah, that’s fine. I guess.”

That was it.

Alya let out a long groan. “I can’t _believe_ you two!”

Marinette blinked.

“Believe what?” she asked, her voice trembling in a way that wasn’t half as clueless as her face.

Alya stared at her friend, wondering if there was a direct way to get her to crack… and then a wonderful, simply idea popped into her mind. She flexed out her hand, Adrien’s hand, before grinning at her friend.

Marinette’s eyes widened. “No,” she said, as if reading Alya’s thoughts. “Don’t you dare.”

It was a small enough corner, and it only took Alya three steps to close the gap between her and her Adrien. She leaned forward, her arm braced against the nearby bookshelf, perfectly positioned for Marinette to have to a full view.

“Oh, Marinette,” Alya crooned, leaning in closer and closer. Adrien stared back up, too confused at what was happening to do anything but blink. “Did I ever tell you that you had the loveliest blue eyes?” She glanced towards Marinette whose face was bright red, before re-devoting her full attention back to Adrien. “My heart has been struck speechless by the power of your beau— ACK!”

Marinette grabbed her by the shirt collar and hauled her away. Alya tried not to cackle as she stumbled along after her. Then she realized they were approaching one of the girls’ bathrooms.

“Woah, Marinette! Marinette, abort! You can’t drag me in there! I’m still in Adrien’s body, remember?”

“Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Marinette let go of Alya’s collar and stood back with her arms crossed. She was furious. Normally that would’ve put Alya into consolatory mode, but not this time. Not when Marinette’s grief was all in her own head.

Alya snorted with laughter. “Why are you so uptight about this?” she asked.

“Uptight?! How can you say that when you know very—” Marinette groaned in frustration, burying her hands in her hair. “How can you do that sort of thing in Adrien’s body? And then do it _to_ him of all people?!”

Alya glanced around to make sure they were still alone.

“But he’s Chat Noir and you’re Ladybug, right?” Alya said. “Which, by the way, you still haven’t fully answered to me for that.”

“I already told you why I couldn’t—”

“Right. The importance of secret identities, blah blah blah.” Alya leaned back against the wall. “You’re still going to have to make it up to be somehow.”

“So all of that was supposed to be, what? My punishment for keeping Ladybug a secret?”

“No, this is me trying to kick your butt into gear,” Alya said. “You never seemed to have any trouble talking to Chat Noir, so why is this—“ Alya gestured to her face, “—so much different?”

“You _know_ why,” Marinette said, hunching her shoulders into a defensive ball.

“And like,” Alya said. “Doesn’t Chat Noir have a thing for Ladybug? I didn’t do anything just now that he hasn’t already done with you. Well, the masked you.” Alya frowned at the way Marinette’s shoulders drooped, but pressed on. “So, like… if the two of you have been crushing on each other since the day school started without knowing it…”

Somehow Marinette’s shoulders managed to droop even further.

“It’s… It’s not like that,” Marinette said. She turned, directing her words to the wall. “Chat just flirts. He does it with everyone.”

Alya stared at her friend.

“Marinette? Look at me,” Alya said. She had to wait a minute until her friend finally did so. “When have you seen Adrien ever flirt with anyone?”

Marinette frowned. “That doesn’t have anything to do with this. Adrien’s different from Chat.”

“No, he’s not, because he’s the same person. I repeat, when have you ever seen Adrien flirt with anyone?”

There was a sullen reluctance to the way she mumbled out “…never,” like Marinette didn’t want to believe that Adrien Agreste treated her any different from the rest of the female population of Paris.

“And when have you ever seen Chat Noir flirt with anyone that’s not Ladybug?” Alya asked.

“That’s not…” Marinette looked away again with a petulant huff. “Just because I’ve never seen it, doesn’t mean I don’t know—“

“We’re not talking about what you supposedly _know_ ; we’re talking about what you’ve personally _seen_. First law of journalism. Now again: when have you ever seen Chat Noir flirt with someone other than yourself?”

Marinette’s resulting pause was even quieter than her first one. Behind Marinette, Alya could see Adrien standing a cautious distance away. He hesitantly pointed at the two of them, then to himself, then back to them. Alya quickly shook her head, then jerked it to side. She needed him to go away before Marinette noticed.

The two of them were on the verge of a breakthrough here.

A totally idiotic breakthrough.

“…never,” Marinette finally muttered, barely a whisper.

“What was that?” Alya said, turning her attention back to her friend. “Didn’t quite catch it.”

“Never.”

“Never what?”

Marinette looked up, practically growling at Alya who refused to back down. Not when she was this close.

“I’ve never seen Chat Noir flirt with anyone other than myself,” Marinette said. She bit her lip. “But that still doesn’t mean—”

Alya let out a loud, extended groan that mixed together with the end of lunch bell.

“I give up,” she said, rubbing her temples. “You’re completely hopeless. A lost cause. Do whatever you want, think whatever you want from here on out, but just know that you’re the only one making it hard for yourself.”

Alya stomped away before her friend managed to frustrate herself further.

* * *

Adrien sat on Marinette’s couch, finishing up the last of his and Alya’s shared homework before bed. Plagg sat nearby, munching on cheese that was _not_ camembert. The last thing Adrien needed was for Marinette’s parents to think she’d developed a sudden craving. Plagg occasionally complained about the injustice of that, but such was life.

Something tapped on the window.

Adrien tumbled off the couch, feet positioned into a battle stance and fist clenched, ready to transform, before he realized it was Tikki.

The red kwami was hovering right outside the glass panes, amulet in hand.

A small scroll was tied around her neck.

Adrien scrambled to unlock and open the window.

“Did you do it?” he asked as she flitted in. “Was your friend able to figure out the translation?”

“Yes and yes,” she squeaked in a cheerful voice as she placed the amulet gently back down on Marinette’s desk. “After we gather you all together, this should be able to switch you all back.”

She untied the scroll and laid it down with the amulet. Adrien grinned, chest swelling with elation.

And then hesitation began to trickle in.

He still wanted to switch back, have things to go back to the way they were, but it wasn’t entirely as simple as that anymore. Of course, there were obviously things he knew would stink going back to: his father and Nathalie compared to Marinette’s family for starters… but then there were the things that _couldn’t_ go back to the way they were.

He knew Marinette was Ladybug, and she knew he was Chat Noir.

Part of him was thankful for that. He didn’t want to lose that knowledge, have them be strangers again. But at the same time, they’d lost a certain ease; the tension Marinette had with Adrien was bleeding over into their “other” relationship.

There’d been one new akuma this week, and even though Tikki had flown back in time to help out and it’d been Marinette as Ladybug and Adrien as Chat Noir, and they’d taken it down fairly quickly, the core of their teamwork unaltered… there’d been something hollow about it. He’d flirted as usual, more out of habit than anything else, but all his words had dropped off his tongue less like honey and more like lead. Marinette had flinched at each one until he’d just stopped them entirely.

The same thing had happened with their victory fist pound. At first it’d been normal, muscle memory taking over for the two them… but then Marinette had paused afterwards, clutching her hand back towards herself, like she’d made a terrible mistake in doing it.

And the worst thing about it all was that there was nothing he could do.

Initially the knowledge of Marinette’s mutual crush on him had made him extremely giddy and light-headed. After all, he liked Ladybug and Ladybug liked him back. Whether they had their masks on or off shouldn’t have had anything to do with it. Unfortunately, as Adrien was coming quicker and quicker to discover, where he dealt with his flailing feelings by covering them up with a thick layer of smarm, Marinette just let the flailingness take over her entire self.

Time and slow understanding, it seemed, were his only allies at this point. He just had to keep acting normal and make her as comfortable as possible and hope it would pass.

 ** _If_** _it would ever pass…_ a nasty part of him whispered.

“Adrien?” Tikki asked, her eyes creased with concern.

Her voice snapped him back to the present. Plagg was still eating his cheese, apparently unbothered by the amulet news. As always it was Marinette’s kwami that was doing the all the emotional support work, being an actual _partner_. Figured that he’d be the one to have gotten the raw end of the kwami deal.

“It’s nothing,” Adrien finally managed. He fished Marinette’s cellphone out of her backpack. Alya’s and his own names were right next to each other, top of the alphabetical list. He would text them to come over the next morning before school, and they could all be switched back by first period. This whole mess of events would be over and done with.

His fingers hesitated over the screen.

A stray though crept into his head.

There was always the possibility of _not_ telling them. Adrien could let the whole charade go on a little while longer, hope that things would continue to change before he was forced to… but that was stupid. He couldn’t put his two friends through anymore struggles just because of him. Besides, the news of the amulet wasn’t exactly something he could keep a secret. Tikki and Plagg were right next to him.

With a final sigh, he tapped on the two names and began to type out a group message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo, just one chapter left!
> 
> I haven't been able to decide yet whether to write it from Marinette's or Adrien's POV. I'm equally torn between both, so I figured I could leave it up to a vote. Let me know in the comments which one you'd prefer! <3


	13. And they all lived happily ever after

The three of them sat cross-legged in the center of Alya’s bedroom. Even though it was a bit further from school than Marinette’s, they all agreed that Alya’s mom was less likely to accidentally interrupt mid-spell.

Adrien coughed.

“So… how should we do this?” he asked.

The amulet had been laid out invitingly in the center of their small circle.

“Well,” Tikki said. “The chanter is never affected by the incantation, so whoever reads it will be the one switching the other two.”

Adrien scratched the back of his neck. To his right, Marinette swallowed nervously.

“Okay!” Alya said, taking charge. “That means Adrien should be the first one to read it. He’ll switch Marinette and me back, I’ll be in my own body, and then I’ll switch Adrien and Marinette back. Any objections?”

Adrien and Marinette glanced at each other before shaking their heads.

Tikki passed the incantation scroll over to Adrien and flitted a safe distance away. None of them knew if the spell would work between kwami and human, and none of them wanted to test it out.

Adrien had taken a look at the scroll the night before; there’d been an awful number of strange, foreign words. He whispered a small prayer that exact pronunciation wouldn’t be too important.

Plagg was seated towards the far end of Alya’s bed with Tikki, watching the whole affair like it was his personalized reality TV program.

“Umm…” Adrien said after he’d un-scrolled the paper to its full length. “Ready then?”

“Ready!” Alya said resolutely.

Marinette nodded, mouth set in a grim line.

Adrien began to read off the script. His stomach threatened to lurch when the amulet started to glow, both instincts and experience associating the glow with “bad things,” but he pushed through it. It’d probably be even worse to stop, the spell only half-done.

As soon as the last syllable left his lips, the amulet flashed, drowning the room with light. Adrien brought both arms up, shielding his eyes. He waited a couple seconds and then lowered them, blinking away the remaining spots.

Marinette and Alya were still sitting on either side of him, but now…

“Woohoo!” Alya yelled, raising both her fists to the ceiling. She hugged herself as she fell backwards onto her own rug.

And on the other side…

“Marinette?” Adrien asked.

Even as he looked at her, he was looking at himself. Marinette tore her eyes away from her flexing hands to look up at him. His own green eyes stared back at him.

“Yeah?” she said.

Adrien swallowed.

This wasn’t awkward.

This wasn’t awkward at all.

It didn’t matter. Alya would have them switched back within the next minutes. He coughed to get the other girl’s attention and then tossed the parchment on top of her when that didn’t work.

“Alright _, alright_ ,” Alya said, pushing herself back up into a sitting position. She readjusted her glasses and cleared her throat before she finally started to chant.

Adrien’s stomach churned wilder as the amulet glowed a second time. Well, technically the fourth time? Or the fifth? He’d lost count of the number of times he’d been zapped with it. There’d been the initial incident outside the Louvre, then that time in the alleyway with Marinette, and then the warehouse with—

Right as the amulet was about the flash into full force, the glow began to fade. Alya had stopped speaking as well.

“What happened?” he asked. “Why did you stop?”

“Because that’s it. I got to the end,” she said, pointing to the very bottom of the incantation. “You didn’t do anything else to get it to work? Did you?”

“No… or at least not that I know of?” Adrien thought back to anything weird he might have subconsciously done. Nothing. “Can I see the paper again?”

“Knock yourself dead.”

She passed it back to him as Tikki flew over to their small circle. She hovered behind his shoulder, looking equally confused.

“Are you sure there wasn’t anything else Tikki?” he asked.

“Nothing!”

Adrien frowned. “Maybe there’s a recharge period?”

“Are you serious?” Alya said.

“That could be a possibility…” Tikki said. “After all, this is the first time it’s been used twice in a row.”

“Alright,” Adrien said, not liking the word but forcing it out anyway. “But then how long do we have to wait? Another hour? A day? A week?”

“Ha,” came Plagg’s voice from the bed. “When the next akuma comes, it’s going to have to go up against _Lordbug_ and Chat Noir.”

Adrien glared at him. “Not funny.”

“It’s not about a recharge period,” Marinette said.

They all turned their heads. It was the most she’d spoken that morning.

“What?” Adrien asked.

“The reason it’s not working,” she said, her face deathly pale and growing paler by the second. “It’s not because of recharge period.” She locked eyes with Adrien. “It’s because we’ve already switched before.”

Adrien stared back at her.

“What are—?”

“Think about it,” she said. “Each time it’s gone off, it’s been between a different pair of us: first you and Alya, then you and me, then Alya and me. The only time it hasn’t worked… I didn’t really think about it at the time since I was caught in the moment, but the only time it hasn’t worked was when…”

“You and I were fighting the thief,” Adrien finished, the memory crashing back into him.

Silence fell over the room.

“We don’t know that for sure though,” Adrien said with a shiny veneer of optimism.

“What else could it be? It’s failed twice in a row between us!” Marinette lifted both hands up. “And now we’re going to be stuck like this! Forever! I can’t be you! I can’t model or sword fight or play the piano or… well, I guess I have Chinese down, but—”

“Marinette,” Adrien placed both hands on her shoulders. He hadn’t been aware that she knew his whole schedule, but whatever. It was something for later. “We’ll figure this thing out, okay? We’re not going be stuck as each other forever.”

Alya smacked her fist down onto her palm.

“Nino!” she said.

Adrien and Marinette stared at her.

“What?” they asked in unison.

“If we can’t switch you guys back _directly_ , we’ll just get another person,” Alya said with a broad grin. “Adrien can switch with Nino, then Marinette with Nino, then Marinette and Adri…” She paused. “Oh, wait.”

“Forget it, Alya,” Marinette said.

“No, no, no,” Alya said with a frantic hand-wave. “I’m sure if we think about this long enough, there’s gotta be a solution. It’s like one of those fox and rabbit logic puzzles, you know.”

Marinette groaned into her hands.

As Alya continued to try and dole out helpful suggestions, Adrien glanced at the clock on her beside table. His heart sunk.

Fifteen minutes until their first class.

“Umm… guys?” Adrien said, pointing towards it.

It hadn’t been an ideal decision, planning to do all the switches before school, but it wasn’t like trying afterwards would’ve been any less time-crunched. Nathalie had made sure of that.

“Well, a break might be good,” Alya said, tapping her chin. “You know, give our brains some off time to generate some creative, problem-solving sparks?”

“Ughhh… easy for you to say,” Marinette muttered. “Tikki, can you go back to your friend in the meantime? See if he has any other ideas?”

“Okay.”

They all stood, Marinette and Adrien more reluctantly than Alya, and started gathering their stuff.

“It stinks that we don’t live in fairytale land,” Alya said, slinging her backpack over her shoulder.

“What do you mean?” Adrien asked.

“Well, then there’d be a one-size-fits-all magic spell or toadstool or something that breaks all curses, and we wouldn’t have to trudge off to school clueless like this.”

Marinette froze.

“This… _would_ be considered a curse, wouldn’t it?” she asked, seemingly more to herself than the others.

“Err, textbook definition, I think,” Alya said.

“Alya,” Marinette breathed. “You’re a _genius_.”

“Wait, what?”

“If this is a curse,” Marinette said. “Then all we have to do is… is…”

She trailed off, her face growing bright red.

“Do what?” Adrien asked.

“Well, you know that whole thing with the stories,” Marinette started, her voice jumping several pitches as she cast her explanation to the ceiling. “And like, well, dark magic and stuff being broken by…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “…a kiss.”

They stared at her.

Alya burst out into laughter. “Oh, Marinette. I know you’d be all for that, but I thought I just said we _didn’t_ live in fairytale land.”

Marinette puffed up, fists clenching as her face dipped into a sharp pout; it looked incredibly surreal coming from free. “I know we don’t, but this actually works! I’ve seen it work!”

“Yeah?” Alya said. “Between who?”

Marinette’s mouth didn’t move, but her gaze slowly slipped towards Adrien. Alya’s laughter stopped.

“Wait, what?!” she yelped. She turned to Adrien. “When did this happen?!”

“I don’t know! Marinette, what are you talking about?”

Marinette covered the whole top of her face with one hand. “So you know back when Kim turned into Dark Cupid? Well, he sort of hit you with one of his arrows and you were completely under his control and fighting me and I couldn’t wait for the miraculous to make it all better and Rose had been talking about it earlier in class that day as a way to break curses, since it _was_ Valentine’s Day and all, and—”

Alya stared at Adrien.

“Do you remember this at all?” she asked blankly.

“No,” Adrien admitted. “But I trust Marinette.” He turned to the girl in question. “And you’re saying, umm, that broke his spell?”

Marinette nodded from behind her hands.

Adrien took a deep breath.

“Well then,” he said, Chat Noir bravado slipping in when Adrien Agreste was starting to sweat. “What are we waiting for?”

Marinette jerked up from the security of her hand.

“Now?” she squeaked. “But, uh, school’s almost about to start! Maybe we should just get going for now and come back to this later?”

“I say now’s fine,” Alya said. “What will it take to try this out? Three seconds? Five, tops.”

Marinette spun towards Alya with a glare that’d catch things on fire.

“Look,” Alya continued. “I’ll stand in this corner! With my eyes closed! Like I’m not even here!”

She demonstrated said actions. Marinette did not look appeased.

Adrien frowned. “Marinette,” he said. “If you don’t feel comfortable doing this right now,I’m fine with—”

“Just kiss and get it over with!” Plagg called out from the bed.

Adrien inhaled sharply.

That was it.

He stomped over towards his kwami.

“Hey! Wait, wait, wait!” Plagg yelped. “What are you—”

Adrien picked him up, unlocked Alya’s bedroom door, tossed the kwami out, and then slammed it shut again behind him.

“Alright,” Adrien said, after silence was reestablished. “You up for this?”

He waited for her inevitable no, but she went stiff instead and then nodded in small jerks.

Adrien nodded as well to himself and put both of his hands on her shoulders. He took a slow, deep breath…

This wasn’t exactly how how he’d imagined his first kiss with Ladybug. Nighttime. It would’ve definitely happened at night. Preferably somewhere near the Eiffel Tower. Or the Seine, with the soft glow of the city reflecting back towards them… But then, apparently she’d already kissed him before? So this wasn’t technically a first kiss. But it didn’t feel a second one. Perhaps a first and a half?

Since Marinette was currently taller than him, he had to lean up on his toes.

“Wait!” Marinette shouted.

Adrien froze, toes only halfway extended.

Marinette’s face had gone completely red.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just— This is too _weird_! That is, you’re me, and I’m looking at my own face and…”

Adrien sighed.

He loved his lady, but sometimes…

“Then close your eyes,” he said.

She grumbled for a bit but eventually did so.

The clock continued to tick on in the back of Adrien’s head. Both of them had wasted enough time.

He closed his own eyes and pushed up the rest of the way on his toes. Their lips brushed in just the tiniest pecks… but that seemed enough for the world to spin beneath his feet, not from some romantic whirl of emotions but an actual, physical tilt. Adrien tottered, flinging out his hands for balance. He felt other hands grab onto him, doing the same.

His eyes opened to a blur of colors, but the world sharpened itself with each blink. He and Marinette were holding onto each other, holding each other steady.

Not only that, but Marinette was _Marinette_.

As he stared at her, he realized that she was making the same observations. Her eyes grew wider and wider as an ecstatic smile spread across her face. Then her hands moved to the back of his neck, and he was yanked into a second kiss.

It was Adrien’s turn for shock, his eyes stretching wide as she kept his mouth pressed against hers. His heart felt like it was in the totally wrong part of his chest, and his brain was… was somewhere. He wasn’t sure where to exactly place his hands: whether to move them or keep them where they were—

She let go, pulling back as the blood drained from her face.

“Oh my God!” she whispered. “I am so sorry! I… I don’t know what I was doing. I…”

Adrien blinked for a moment, then slipped into one of his automatic Chat Noir smirks.

He dipped her low, cutting off any further apologies. She was just staring at him now, face neither white with horror or red with crushing embarrassment. If it was just Ladybug, she’d pushed him away before he went any further, but Marinette just let him draw closer… and then closer…

There was a click of a photo app.

Adrien and Marinette froze, then turned their heads.

Alya was standing in her corner with a broad grin slapped onto her face. And a phone.

“Don’t mind me!” she said with a wave. “Go on! Go… Aww, come _on_!” She let out a sputtering moan of disappointment as Adrien and Marinette broke apart.

The two grabbed their bags in silence as Alya continued to ramble on to Tikki about the injustice, who - once again, unlike _Plagg_ \- had been extremely quiet and unobtrusive for most the morning.

There were only five minutes before school now and no way they’d be able to make it on time. Who knew what would happen when the tardy notice reached his father along with all the non-perfect test scores of the past week…

Who _cared_?

Adrien grabbed Marinette’s hand as they headed out. She looked back. Conscious of Alya and Plagg nearby, he mouthed the word “later” and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

His stomach flipped at the way Marinette somehow managed to both turn red and roll her eyes at the same time.

* * *

Adrien sat perched on the rooftop, staring off into the distant Parisian night. It felt liberating being himself again. Even if the first thing he’d had to deal with had been his father’s scowling face.

“Chat?”

Still the punishments that’d been doled out weren’t worse than anything he’d been dealt before.

“Chat.”

Well, not by much…

“Chat!”

Marinette yanked his tail, and he flailed backwards. He recovered just in time to see her staring down at him through her red mask.

“Were you listening to a single thing I just said?” she asked..

Adrien blinked, looking innocent as he cast his eyes up to the cloud-filled sky. “ _Purr_ haps?”

Marinette groaned before shoving her hands towards his chest. However, this time he was ready and side-stepped her attack. She stumbled as she pushed too hard against empty air, and he caught her with ease.

“Careful, princess,” he said. “You never know what sort of terrors and unexpected dangers are lurking in the dark.”

“Oh really?” she replied. “Then, I’m all the luckier to have a such strong, brave knight looking out for me.”

He grinned back, pulling her close as he moved in for a kiss, but Marinette pushed him back with a single finger against his nose. She laughed, spinning out of his grasp.

“Come on!” she said with a smirk. “Race you to the Eiffel Tower!”

“Is there a prize for the winner?”

Marinette strolled casually away, then turned her head over her shoulder. “You’ll just have to beat me to find out.”

Adrien opened his mouth to—

“Threetwoone,go!” she shouted.

She had her yo-yo out and was swinging away before he’d managed to utter a syllable.

“Hey!” he yelled after her. “That’s not—!”

Adrien let out a huff. It didn’t do him any good to argue with the space she used to occupy. He shook his head, and then - with a lazy twirl of his staff - leapt after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it folks! My original plan was for this story was to finish up about 10k words, so I hope you all have enjoyed the longer, slightly bumpier ride! <33


End file.
